
,.4.^ - ..*£ 

'.;-, A -!-- K ;? ,-?■»>• -<> X 

F c vA^-fe^- v- *V 


- 

IS**? 

.-^S' 

' 


'*. V ‘ -'- V-: - •■' 

* 


■>•’ ’£%b&. 

r?■ ’ - r "*.. ot : ' > 

'-* V; ? --,-...;.-••• 

.• -v . 

v;V- .*&-• ■'-> •• - 

.-- -rS ■ #•-»' -. • V">'-JpS- 

v.v :. - 1 u 


• ?!?*?&;• 
f2» "■< Vi*. v->‘. 




- --.. - • 

V- • /-.':• 

' v' -f-'IV **$£&■ •• £ » •>' •: ': .v.<i i-y, 
■ 

*k. -.' -wj -c&i '-•■.•* : ■ • 









Book_ 

GojpgM?_ 


COPYRiGHT DEPOSIT. 









THE REHABILITATION OF EVE 



/ 

The 

Rehabilitation of Eve 


by 


SALLIE HOVEY v 

ir 


“The weariest and most loathed worldly life that 
age y ache f penury and imprisonment 
Can lay on nature is a paradise 
To what we fear of death.” 

Shakespeare: Measure for Measure—Act 111 


CHICAGO 

HYMAN-McGEE CO. 

1924 



\\b^ 


Copyright, 1924 
Hyman-McGee Co. 


J 

y 


Chicago 


DEC -9 1924 

©Cl A8151Z3 Q. 




/ 


c* 

CT* 


A 


3 




TFECTIONATELY dedicated to my nieces 


•L Lispenard Seabury Crocker and Etheldreda 
Seabury. 

This book is written with a happy recognition 
of their luscious zest for life, and with the desire 
that “this sensible warm motion” in them, and in 
others like them, may be perpetuated. 


SALLIE HOVEY 


Portsmouth, New Hampshire, October, 1924 


THE REHABILITATION OF EVE 

A Book on Rejuvenation 
And the Perpetual Life . 



The fact that the tale of the Garden 
of Eden has survived and held the 
imagination of men spellbound for 
centuries, whilst hundreds of much 
more plausible and amusing stories 
have gone out of fashion and perished 
like last year’s popular song, is a 
scientific fact and science is bound to 
explain it. You can tell me science 
knows nothing of it. Then science is 
more ignorant than the children of 
any village school. The term of hu¬ 
man life shall be extended to 300 
years. Spread that knowledge, that 
conviction, and as surely as the sun 
will rise tomorrow, the thing will hap¬ 
pen. George Bernard Shaw 





























Chapter I 


HE rehabilitation of Eve demands 
an adventurous spirit. Such a 
spirit will neither deny the value 
of material aids nor regard them 
of paramount importance. The 
body is, to be sure, a valuable in¬ 
strument of advance. It has been the stone which 
the builders refused, now become the head stone 
in the corner. The corner stone is far away from 
the pinnacle. It stands below the place of wor¬ 
ship. It may be wisely forgotten in times of 
exaltation and freedom, yet it is essential to the 
superstructure and as such it deserves a modicum 
of care and attention. 

The discoveries of Voronoff, Steinach and 
Kammerer are significant and widely acclaimed. 
Steinach’s message has been called “the most 
cheerful that science has sounded in centuries.” 

The effect of Steinach’s discovery on insur¬ 
ance for life, disability and old age, already has 
11 


T 




12 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

been discussed with animation at a meeting of 
underwriters in New York. 

Before long, we may hear that insurance has 
been refused to un-Steinached men and women. 
Yet the advances of materialism are little more 
than symptoms of a new trend in the realm of 
the mind. 

There are indications of change on all sides. 
Some of us are even now aware of the significance 
of the new order. The wiser the few in one 
decade, the wiser will be the multitude in the 
next. 

It is safe to say that the drama of the Garden 
of Eden would be more plausible to Shaw and 
his contemporaries if the leading role had been 
given to Adam. Woman has long played a sub¬ 
ordinate part in the world’s history. She has 
been hampered not only physically but tempera¬ 
mentally. In the fields of mechanics and inven¬ 
tion, arts and crafts, commerce and industry, 
literature and statescraft, men indubitably have 
led the way. Even in such work as cooking, 
dressmaking and millinery, men are admittedly 
more expert. 

Yet in a very early era women took an impor- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 13 

tant part in religious and political life. In 
Greece the Delphic Oracle was delivered by a 
priestess. The Vestal Virgins in Rome were a 
political institution. In Asia Minor, high 
priestesses controlled great cults with elaborate 
ritual and substantial emoluments. They held 
positions calling for extraordinary acumen and 
executive ability. 

In the great empires of antiquity the status of 
woman was comparatively favorable. In a stage 
of advanced civilization she again tends to hold 
v a high place, while in the middle stage, usually 
the stage of predominating military organiza¬ 
tion on a patriarchal basis, woman occupies a 
less favorable position. 

Henry Mencken asserts that women are the 
“supreme realists of the race. Women decide 
the larger questions of life correctly and quickly. 
They see at a glance what most men could not 
see with searchlights and telescopes; they are 
at grips with the essentials of a problem before 
men have finished debating its mere externals. 
Apparently illogical, they are the possessors of 
a rare and subtle super logic. Apparently whim¬ 
sical, they hang to the truth with a tenacity 


14 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


which carries them through every phase of its 
incessant jellylike shifting of form. Apparently 
unobservant and easily deceived, they see with 
bright and horrible eyes.” 

Thus Eve in the Garden of Eden conversed 
with the serpent because she found him “more 
subtle than any beast of the field,” She rea¬ 
soned with him on the subject nearest her heart, 
the mystery about the fruit of the tree of the 
knowledge of good and evil. She pensively par¬ 
ried with the information which he produced, 
but she knew the serpent spoke the truth. She 
desired the knowledge of good and evil and 
eventually she obtained it to the extent of her 
somewhat limited capacity. Her wisdom on 
that occasion has been reasonably questioned. It 
has also been upheld by certain philosophers and 
divines in all ages. Tomes have been written on 
both sides of the argument. Had there been no 
Fall, there could have been no Atonement, no 
philosophy of Regeneration. 

Returning to the Genetic drama, we are led 
to believe that Adam, if consulted, would have 
endeavored to restrain the temerity of his wife. 
It would appear that he was not upon the scene 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 15 

at all while Eve held converse with her lowly 
companion, and when she made her fatal deci¬ 
sion. 

When she took the fruit and did eat thereof, 
Adam again is introduced; it was then useless 
to protest. Eve having eaten, Adam with char¬ 
acteristic loyalty took the fruit from her hands 
and ate also. Later, in bold refrain he chanted 
the exploits of his chief, like the Greek chorus 
of a later period, ascribing all the initiative to 
her, giving her indeed the center of the stage, 
as was her due, yet sharing with her the punish¬ 
ment of exile from the garden. 

The scene ends: “And the Lord God said, 
Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know 
good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his 
hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat and 
live forever. 

“Therefore the Lord God sent him forth from 
the Garden of Eden, to till the ground from 
whence he was taken. 

“So he drove out the man; and he placed at 
the east of the Garden of Eden, cherubims, and 
a flaming sword which turned every way to keep 
the way of the tree of life.” (Genesis III.) 


16 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

Eve’s coup appears to have been premature. 
Like so much effective drama, the tragic element 
is predominant. The details of the scheme of 
salvation that followed may be left largely to 
the theologians; yet it is permissible to say that 
the scriptures, of practically all religions, deal 
with a fall from grace together with a theory 
of salvation from the specters of death and 
destruction, which rule outside the Garden. 
Even aside from tradition, there is much to indi¬ 
cate that man as a race has seen better days. Still 
there has been from the beginning a promise of 
restoration, and this promise also has survived 
and held the imagination of man spellbound. 
What may be called a frenzy of belief in the 
promise of salvation from death, has been wide¬ 
spread in all ages and is rampant today. This, 
in the Shavian phrase, is a scientific fact. 

Against the story of the Fall, of the promised 
restoration, and of the stupendous dramatic 
interest which these present today, the question 
of the historic veracity of any of the events por¬ 
trayed, pales into palpable insignificance. 

That restoration is not yet, is mournfully ob¬ 
vious. That woman might first find the way to 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 17 

restoration, plausibly might be surmised. Her 
interest in questions relating to life and death, 
is of necessity greater than man’s; it was to her 
that the serpent appealed. It is woman today 
who bears the chief burden of reproduction; 
and reproduction is the only method of race sur¬ 
vival which we know to be extant. The problem 
of race suicide was widely discussed before the 
war. At that time it evoked an academic inter¬ 
est. One speculated with some curiosity upon 
what might happen, sometime in the future, if 
the slowly falling birth rate among the higher 
classes should continue to decline, even pro¬ 
gressively. Since the war, the problem presents 
a more than academic interest; changed economic 
conditions have very rapidly increased its worst 
features. Not only are superior individuals 
“sterilized by success,” an incident noted 
throughout all periods of time, but increasingly 
among the highest and the upper middle classes, 
they fail to reproduce, while the other elements 
are multiplying at rates proportionate to their 
increasing intelligence. 

Failing a radical change, a change of cata¬ 
clysmic proportions, civilization cannot but fall 


18 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

and that speedily. The thing is simple almost 
to the point of puerility. We hear it every day. 
It would be difficult to find a review or journal, 
even a country newspaper, which has not dealt 
with it. If it were possible to deny it, the matter 
would present a more universal interest. As it 
is, the subject usually is received with something 
like apathy. If it be inevitable, why wring the 
hands like the Red Queen in ‘Through the 
Looking Glass,” who wept and otherwise indi¬ 
cated her distress before the incident of running 
a pin into her finger had taken place? 

Lothrop Stoddard, in his widely discussed 
volumes, “The Revolt Against Civilization” and 
the “Rising Tide of Color,” presents the facts 
and figures in undisputed array and with seem¬ 
ingly inevitable comments and conclusions. 
Madison Grant, in “The Passing of the Great 
Race,” has more to say on the rapidly advancing 
disaster. The point I wish to make here is, that 
for every man of superior discernment and en¬ 
lightened intelligence, who wrestles with some 
of the more ghastly aspects of the dilemma, there 
are a hundred women, supreme realists of the 
race, who, although generally of feebler intellect, 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 19 

are viewing the problem with more intimate 
concern. 

Already, women are longer lived than men, a 
fact that is recognized by life insurance com¬ 
panies. Of one thousand female children born, 
thirteen live to ninety years, while only seven in 
one thousand male children attain that age. 

But what is ninety years compared with the 
Shavian three hundred? Should woman lead 
the way to a condition of perennial youth, man 
by his greater adaptability would equal or sur¬ 
pass her. Though a good proportion of nona¬ 
genarians are women, men predominate among 
those whose lives, as recorded, extend well over 
the century. 

Shaw in his most oracular vein declares: “I 
can testify that among the women brought up 
amid the feminist movement of the second half 
of the nineteenth century there was a revolt 
against maternity which went deeper than that 
revolt against excessive maternity, which has 
led to birth control. These more thorough 
going rebels objected to the whole process, from 
the occasional event itself to the more permanent 
conditions it imposes. It is easy to dismiss this 


20 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

as monstrous and silly, but the modern concep¬ 
tion of creative evolution forbids us to dismiss 
any development as impossible, if it becomes the 
subject of an aspiration. There is no limit to the 
truth of the old saying, ‘where there is a will, 
there is a way,’ and though for the moment a 
refusal to accept the existing conditions of repro¬ 
duction would mean race suicide, the rebels 
against nature may be the pioneers of evolution¬ 
ary changes.” 

There has been an extremely significant 
change in women’s fashions in the last genera¬ 
tion. The psychology of dress has an importance 
which deserves more attention. 

There is a growing and accelerating tendency 
to do away with the accentuation of the difference 
in sex. Formerly, this accentuation was the 
primary concern of habit and fashion. The hour 
glass figure so long in vogue gave undue prom¬ 
inence to the breast and hips. The waist was 
compressed and the other portions induced to 
bulge. Failing a natural embonpoint the breast 
was caged with whalebone while the lower parts 
were padded heavily. Long voluminous skirts 
so hampered the movements that it was fre- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 21 

quently necessary to lift them. Mothers carrying 
babies upstairs were dangerously handicapped. 
Athletics were taboo. Mincing manners and 
airs of languor were designed to be provocative. 
The so-called voluptuous beauty was highly 
esteemed. It is impossible to believe that women 
will ever return to customs which have become 
abhorrent to her. The advertising columns of 
Parisian fashion magazines which a generation 
ago were offering nostrums for increasing the 
weight under the caption tl Volupte” now offer 
remedies for this condition labeled “Maigrir!’ 

The fashionable silhouette today approximates 
the outlines of the figure of a slender boy. Cloth¬ 
ing is highly suspended from the shoulders, giv¬ 
ing little or no indication of a waistline. 
Probably woman’s dress never before so closely 
resembled the sort of clothing a little child 
would make for her doll. Even so, beauty is 
not sacrificed to simplicity or convenience. 
Evening dress is suitable for dancing; free move¬ 
ment is favored. The useful, daytime, separate 
skirt is short and scant; the mannish blouse is 
cut in simple lines. 

For athletic games and sports, knickerbockers 


22 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

have been adopted by the younger members of 
a generally conservative element. Sponsored by 
women of distinction, this fashion has been gain- 
ing popular approval. If the general trend 
continues and skirts are given up altogether ex¬ 
cept for evening wear and formal occasions, it 
will be the woman of light morals or abandoned 
regime who will cling longest to the drapery, 
which has ever been her obvious weapon of of¬ 
fense. 

A well-known artist who recently returned 
from Paris declared that she was the only long¬ 
haired woman she met. The coiffeur de gargon 
is the prevailing fashion. Women who still pre¬ 
fer long hair for themselves are admonished by 
fashion magazines, to arrange it in a style of 
simple severity, close to the head, so the appear¬ 
ance of short hair is produced. The desired 
effect is not the palpably masculine, but the 
subtly and temperamentally androgynous. 

The change in men’s fashions is in the direc¬ 
tion of greater variety of color and fabric. Men 
no longer habitually appear in funereal black. 
The young and charming Prince of Wales is 
notably fond of daring lines and varied colors. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 23 

At a recent sporting event, he appeared wearing 
a bright-hued sweater. Since then, looms in 
countless factories have worked busily to supply 
the unending demand for them. Perhaps the 
most significant change in men’s fashion is the 
abolishment of the beard. The hirsute adorn¬ 
ment held in such high esteem by our fathers 
and grandfathers is now almost universally dis¬ 
dained. Men spare time from busy lives to rid 
themselves daily of the infinitesimal growth 
which nature has imposed since yesterday. 

Blatant masculinity is shunned by both sexes. 
Soft effeminancy is also abhorred. 

It is dimly perceived that certain aspects of 
the old ways of love between the sexes are inti¬ 
mately related to destruction. After centuries 
of misdirected aim, the race is now rapidly turn¬ 
ing its attention to new ways of loving. Love 
is the great vivifier, the inspirer of new life, new 
freedom, youth unending. 

In life, man learns a few lessons which could 
be exceedingly useful to him if he had more time 
to profit by them. He acquires a few facts, a 
bit of philosophy, a dash of art. He catches 
furtive visions of splendid possibilities, glimpses 


24 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


of potential achievement, and then, at a time when 
under favorable conditions he could render most 
effective service to the world and acquire the 
greatest happiness for himself, he falls back; he 
is drawn to destruction by the power which 
brought him forth. A primarily beneficent force 
has become his enemy, seeking to devour him. 

Man still shudders on the crumbling edge of 
that gloomy chasm called Death. Ever striving 
to withdraw, to establish a foothold on firmer 
soil, he has maintained himself, perhaps, a few 
score years, only to succumb at last, to disappear 
into the yawning blackness which all abhor. 
Yet we are not without hope. Lothrop Stoddard 
says: “Stressful transition is the keynote of our 
times. . . . We stand at one of those momen¬ 
tous crises of history when mankind moves from 
one well marked epoch to another of widely 
different character.” 

When a few have grasped the essentials of new 
life, the multitude will press forward to follow 
after. 


1 HAVE opened one door to the palace 
of truth; no doubt there are hun¬ 
dreds of gates I have overlooked, a 
hundred corridors that others luckier 
than I will discover. 

Eugen Steinach 



































% 
















































¥ 

































Chapter II 


N ESSENTIAL element of 
successful controversy is an un¬ 
equivocal statement from the an¬ 
tagonist. It is the insidious and 
skulking enemy who is most dif¬ 
ficult to combat. “My desire is 
that mine adversary had written a book,” de¬ 
clared Job. One may have cause to rejoice, not 
only at the bulk of the opposing force, but at 
certain clear and definite outlines of its presenta¬ 
tion. In a book published in London and New 
York, in 1919, there is a careful and precise 
statement of an almost universal folly. With 
neat salience it epitomizes the perversity of a 
wrong idea, which, long since having become a 
conviction, has had unfortunate and inevitably 
fatal results. 

“Why do WE DIE?” by Edward Mercer, 
gives us an intelligent and scholarly summary of 
what has been generally believed about Old Age 
and Death since prehistoric times. Dr. Mercer 
says that old age is a period of “decline—a phase 

27 




28 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

in which the vital powers begin to fail, sink lower 
and lower until they flicker and finally fail.” 

It will be indicated here that this theory of 
“decline” is diametrically opposed to the discov¬ 
eries and principles of modern science. It will 
be seen that old age is a period when the natural 
forces increase instead of diminishing. It will 
be seen that the cause of man’s pseudo decline and 
actual defeat is excess of force, force wrongly 
applied, force ignorantly, perversely, abusively 
exercised in defiance of man’s deepest instinct, his 
most exalted desire—the will to live. To say an 
old man dies because his forces have declined is 
like saying that one died of thirst who was, in 
fact, drowned in a pool of drinking water. 
Death from superabundance of the life force is 
sufficiently evident when death results from acute 
disease. Nearly all of such ailments are marked 
by high temperature and pulse and other indica¬ 
tions of excess—the higher the temperature the 
more marked the danger. Since many of the 
symptoms of fever are merely exaggerated symp¬ 
toms of extraordinarily good health, it is some¬ 
times difficult for an untrained observer to recog¬ 
nize disease. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 29 

During the influenza epidemic in 1918, the 
number of doctors and trained nurses in some 
localities was so inadequate to cope with the 
emergency that it was necessary to call for volun¬ 
teer helpers among the untrained. One such in¬ 
experienced aid, acting under trained supervision 
in a hospital, found that many of her precon¬ 
ceived ideas of ill health were at variance with 
the facts. Among the many young shipworkers 
who were being cared for, she readily picked out 
as the most seriously affected, a pale and peevish 
boy who talked feebly but volubly of his discom¬ 
fort. He proved to be a convalescent, and was 
soon discharged. To her unsophistication 
another patient bore an aspect of extraordinary 
well being. There were not only sparkling eyes 
and a high color, but a mien of virile and even 
cheerful intensity, somewhat abstracted, yet very 
much alive. Two days later he died in his 
nurse’s arms as she lifted his head to give him 
water. 

The exuberance of nature is well known, and 
when we have learned to use and control this 
exuberance we shall hear no more of the decline 
of forces in youth or age. An earlier generation 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


30 

bled the patient to control the excess. Ice baths 
were a later expedient. A great variety of med¬ 
icines designed to diminish the forces have been 
and still are used to some extent; but each and 
every material effort proves fallible and is in turn 
rejected for another method equally at fault. 

Modern science, always aiming to hold itself 
within the bonds of verifiable happenings, with 
a certain naivete makes many admissions that 
will be seen to contradict the theory of the decline 
of the life forces in old age. Charles S. Minot, 
late Professor of Comparative Anatomy in the 
Harvard Medical School, in his book on the 
problem of “Age, Growth and Death” says, 
“The period of old age so far from being the 
chief period of decline, is in reality the period in 
which the decline going on in each of us will be 
the least. Old age is the period of slowest 
decline.” 

Again, “There is another class of phenomena 
characteristic of the very old, which will perhaps 
seem a little surprising. I refer to the power of 
repair. Modern surgery especially has enabled 
us to recognize this as being far greater in the 
old than we were wont to assume; and we know 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 31 

that there is a certain luxury, a certain excess 
reserve in the power of repair.” Careful and 
loyal scientist as he is, Prof. Minot makes no rash 
assertions or equivocal deductions. He does, 
however, make use of certain very pregnant ad¬ 
jectives after some of his enunciations of scientific 
fact—“paradoxical,” “strange,” “surprising,” 
“startling,” “mysterious”—and in the last chap¬ 
ter he permits himself this: “I can venture to 
suggest to you that in the future deeper insight 
into these mysteries probably awaits us.” He 
warns the reader not to look upon this as a 
prophecy, but adds, “Stranger things and more 
unexpected have happened.” 

A tentative, expectant attitude may be said to 
characterize modern science. Occupying itself 
with minutiae and generally neglecting great 
problems, science yet makes telling admissions, 
as it were inadvertently contributing to the mod¬ 
ern movement. Sir Oliver Lodge says: “It 
turns out upon inquiry that old age and death are 
not essential to living organisms.” This dictum, 
strange to many laymen, is now generally ad¬ 
mitted by scientists who have considered it. 
August Weismann, distinguished for his original 


32 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

research and for his theories of germ plasm, was 
one of the earliest modern scientists to declare 
death non-essential. He tells us that death is not 
a primary necessity, but that it has been secon¬ 
darily acquired by adaptation. He says, “Nat¬ 
ural death was not introduced from absolute 
intrinsic necessity inherent in the nature of living 
matter.” In other words, death would appear 
to have been an after-thought on the part of the 
Creator. Thus science has been brought to 
harmonize with the early Mosaic teaching. 
Adam and Eve were created for immortality. 
They sinned, and death was introduced as a pun¬ 
ishment. Since Adam’s fall, life has been con¬ 
tinually failing and making a fresh start. Weis- 
mann said death was introduced on the grounds 
of utility from necessities which sprang up. In 
simple terms, life found our forefathers inade¬ 
quate, disappointing; a fresh start might, but did 
not rectify the blunder—a new experiment, con¬ 
tinued failure. Some thousands of years—a 
moment in eternity—and man is still giving way 
to the ancient curse, turning his face to the wall, 
away from all he most values. 

Let us look into the nature of the Mosaic pun- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 33 

ishment. It is not merely arbitrary, like a fine 
imposed for a venial offense; it is a punishment 
made to fit the crime. A man dies because he is 
not fit to live. He may have many virtues, but 
he lacks the particular and special requirements 
of the great archmistress—Life. If one loves a 
queen, one seeks to win her, not by a mere hap¬ 
hazard display of charms or accomplishments. 
Instead, if one is wise one studies her tastes, her 
subtleties, her predilections. She is exacting; 
she is coy; she has her own secret byways and 
caprices. She hates clumsiness and rude contor¬ 
tions. She knows her value, and she resents any 
suggestion that she does not hold supreme place 
in one’s affections. So with Life. She loves us; 
she turns her bright, beautiful face hopefully, 
eagerly, to each one. In wonder we adore; few 
fail to render homage, yet, not understanding her 
requirements, we fail to please, and Life, re¬ 
pelled, turns her face against us and at length 
leaves us for newer, fresher, younger lovers. 
Ask a thousand individuals—What is the 
summum bonum? And note the replies: Cul¬ 
ture, love, service, wealth, fame. Life itself is 
too close to the eyes; it is passed over for its acces¬ 
sories, its gifts. 


34 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


Minto explains that, physiologically speaking, 
the chief cause of the infirmities of old age is the 
increase of the protoplasm. Now protoplasm is 
the physical basis of life. He says, “We should 
hardly anticipate that its increase would have a 
deleterious effect; but such is, it seems to me, 
clearly the case.” 

We know it is nature’s way to produce an over¬ 
supply. A fish may produce a million eggs in 
order to insure the production of half a dozen 
lusty offspring to frisk in the condensed and 
unctuous atmosphere of the native environment. 
Thus each of us with increasing years is con¬ 
fronted with an increasing degree of life force. 
With a certain greediness we grasp more than 
we can use and it is this superfluity which has 
such a pernicious effect. Before leaving us, life 
overwhelms us in her embraces, then smites and 
crushes us in scorn at the lack of finesse in our 
puny efforts to respond. 

The gaping jaws of a cat represent the worst 
of all conceivable ills to a bird. We know it is 
well equipped to protect itself against what 
appears to be a menacing fate, yet the bird is 
capable of allowing itself to be lured to a dread- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 35 

ful doom. The wings given it to fly away are 
used to forward its own destruction. 

The bird thinks it must approach the cat; the 
Nemesis of birds has issued a decree depriving 
it of all power of choice, perhaps it may fancy 
dimly a sort of bird paradise beyond those drip¬ 
ping jowls and gleaming teeth. Thus with gaze 
transfixed upon the blazing eyes and curling lips 
in advance of that black gulf of horror and dis¬ 
may, the bird slowly advances to what is for it 
the epitome of all evil. If its emotional nature 
could be for one moment somewhat detached, it 
would quite simply observe the proximity of 
danger and would hastily betake itself to safer 
altitudes. It is the very intensity of its love of 
life and fear of death which paralyzes the will 
of the bird and of man. With every essential 
to continual life easily and abundantly at hand, 
man succumbs to a fictitious alarm and falls into 
despair. Irrefutable scientific evidence is thrust 
aside and the forecasting of the prophets is for¬ 
gotten or despised. 

It is time in the face of the great adversary to 
cease to be thus inert, puerile and supine. 



























It may be that the million cells of 
sense, 

Loosed from their seventy years 
adhesion, pass 

Each to some joy of changed experi¬ 
ence. John Masefield 




Chapter III 


F A man dies of old age his unfit¬ 
ness to live is peculiarly evident, 
because death from old age is 
death that encroaches very slowly. 
Death takes at last what too long 
has been obviously its own. The 
individual, no longer master, long since has laid 
down his arms. Hence the life force has been 
diverted; it is not dead, for the life force is eter¬ 
nal. The multitude of little lives within 
the body are now more than ordinarily active. 
They are hard at work busily undoing the 
primal purpose. These cells are now in com¬ 
plete mutiny. 

Dr. Serge Voronoff says: “Death shocks man 
with a sense of the crudest injustice, for he 
treasures an intimate memory of his immortality. 
Every least cell entering into his composition, 
and which in the early days of the world’s crea¬ 
tion formed an integral and independent being, 

39 




40 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


recalls its indeterminate and eternal life and 
cries out with horror at the prospect of death. 
.... These primitive cells, simple agglomera¬ 
tions of protoplasm, never die, nor do we ever 
find their corpses.” 

Minot says: “Every cell is a unit, both 
anatomically and physiologically. It has a cer¬ 
tain individuality of its own. It would appear 
that this word cell, as commonly used by scien¬ 
tists, implies an inmate, one who inhabits this 
minute dwelling place. Since the inmate of the 
cell is not microscopically observable we may, 
if we like, assume it to be a spiritual entity; 
but we will continue to use the familiar appella¬ 
tion.” 

While we live in health we have this army of 
little cells at command. When the will lays 
down its arms, the cells become scattered, the 
army flies asunder seeking other leadership. 
Microscopic organisms transmute the matter into 
food. We call this putrefaction—a very active 
form of life. The forces are very much alive, 
the particles of the body are very much alive. 
Why then, did the will of man relinquish its 
hold? If one may confine his arguments to essen- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 41 

tials and not lose his way in a mass of precedent, 
it will be seen that there is no inherent reason 
why man should thus release living force and 
living matter which have been exceedingly use¬ 
ful to him for a period of time. 

In a description of death from old age given 
by De Mange, we read: “Arrived at extreme 
old age, and still preserving the last flickers of 
an expiring intelligence, the old man feels weak¬ 
ness gaining on him from day to day. His limbs 
refuse to obey his will; the skin becomes insensi¬ 
tive, dry, and cold; the extremities lose their 
warmth; the face is thin; the eyes hollow and the 
sight weak; speech dies out on his lips, which 
remain open; life quits the old man from the cir¬ 
cumference toward the center.” 

We feel here that life has exercised a wise re¬ 
treat, yet, to continue the military figure, this 
retreating army is far from being in a state of 
decline. It is merely relieving itself of obnox¬ 
ious and useless incumbrances. It is saving itself 
for better things. In the center, it would seem, 
is the way of escape; the retreat is from the cir¬ 
cumference to the center. In infancy the assem¬ 
blage of force fits the surface of the body, push- 


42 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


ing forward to such an extent that the outlines 
bulge. In childhood and adolescence the 
tendency to bulge is less pronounced, though the 
force still unconsciously pushes, producing agree¬ 
able curves in the face and body. In maturity we 
feel a faint pulling back from the surface. We 
feel it first around the eyes, later in the throat 
and other parts. Probably no reader who has 
given any attention to his bodily forces has failed 
to feel a delicate pull, perhaps a strong pull, 
possibly much vigorous pulling. This pull is the 
chief enemy of man. When man has learned to 
control his bodily powers he will direct them 
to those parts which are manifestly in need. 
Above all, he will reject such part of the vast 
influx of force which he cannot use to advantage. 
Having reduced the inflow to a minimum, he 
will direct the precious elixir, driving it for¬ 
ward. Thus the unconscious push of early life 
will become the consciously directed push when 
such direction is required. When man has 
learned to do this, then will come the promised 
return to Paradisiacal conditions foretold by all 
religions. The forces are not only in themselves 
immortal, but they are with us unceasingly while 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 43 

we live. Unceasingly they are ready for our 
directing control. Any intelligent person may 
change the direction of force at any given 
moment. To retain control of the force will 
require patience, humility, diligence, faith—most 
of all love for the end to be attained. This as¬ 
pect will be considered more at length in another 
chapter. It is necessary first of all to recognize 
the force that is at work within us. We know it 
for a mighty agent incapable of inaction, created 
primarily to serve us with an alternative of wreck¬ 
age and disaster; capable of hollowing the cheeks, 
pulling the eyes back into the orbits, carving deep 
wrinkles in the flesh, pulling backward in all 
portions of the body, producing thereby hardness 
and toughness of the muscles. This force is a 
positive force and a very powerful one. 
Obviously a negation of force, a simple decline 
of force could not accomplish these positive ends. 
After death the force ceases to pull back from 
the surface of the body. After the death of a 
man in later life, one observes in the face of the 
deceased fewer signs of old age than would be 
observed in the same face if the man were alive 
and merely weary, not critically ill. Especially 


44 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


if death came suddenly, we may find a surprising 
return of youthful contour. Where there were 
signs of care, hurry, unrest, willfulness, possibly 
peevishness or despair, where we saw a mass of 
tell-tale wrinkles, we find now, comparatively, 
calmness and repose. The forces within have 
changed their manner of attack; the new activity 
is well understood by the chemist, but it need not 
interest us in detail. 

Our concern now and at every moment is with 
this surge within us, which is either bearing us 
onward progressively to better things, or is mas¬ 
tering us, pulling us back, treading us into the 
mire. By a travesty of abuse, this beneficent 
force may become a vampire clutching us with 
venomous talons, tearing our vital organs, pull¬ 
ing us into our graves. If man had been arbi¬ 
trarily deprived of the weapons of life, if, as is 
generally understood, the forces are despotically 
withdrawn, we would merely be called upon to 
submit, to crouch beneath the wheels of the car 
of Juggernaut when we hear it thundering over 
our heads. If, instead we perceive that what has 
been called the decline of forces is rather the 
perversion of forces which now may be reverted 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


45 


in our favor, we may turn our faces toward a new 
era. The fall of man is the perversion of the 
laws of life. Salvation is the return to the right 
way. 

























/ 






About the secret— quick about 
it, friend! 

A hair perhaps divides the false and 
true, 

And upon what, prithee, may life 
depend? 


Omar Khayyam 


4 







Chapter IV 



T IS said that Rodin modelled the 
human figure as if the surface 
were pushing out from the inside. 
This to him was the secret of the 
art. He said, “By such modelling 
the masterpieces of sculpture take 
on the radiant aspect of human flesh.” 

No part of the body is quite flat and this push 
from within, this radiant bulge, was noticeably 
practiced by the Greeks. It is nature’s way, and 
if art is led by nature it may in turn rally nature 
on. In childhood, as we have seen, the push from 
within prevails; it is unconscious and practically 
continuous. In middle life this condition mod¬ 
erates. The life force does not grow less; on the 
contrary it becomes more active, having at com¬ 
mand an increasing supply of protoplasm. If it 
retreats, it is because it has become too active for 
man’s good. It should be held in equilibrium. 
Yet in a tired man there is a perceptible retreat; 




cjo The Rehabilitation of Eve 

one may observe a backward or downward in¬ 
clination of the flesh. This is most noticeable in 
the face, especially about the eyes. Indentations 
appear over the area of the operation of the back¬ 
ward pull. We call these indentations wrinkles. 
They represent the expenditure of an enormous 
amount of force. One could not make a wrinkle 
all at once, but by pulling fiercely for several 
hours every day after a period of years one could 
produce a wrinkle which would be noticeable, 
even conspicuous. Nearly everyone before reach¬ 
ing his twenty-fifth year has felt a tendency in 
the flesh to pull back. The eyes suffer in the 
course of time. Very slowly the eyeball loses its 
roundness, becomes flattened; the eyes lose a de¬ 
gree of luster, and their functional power even¬ 
tually is impaired. When the eyes suffer, the 
region of the throat is subjected to the backward 
pull. Hollows slowly appear, or if the flesh is 
heavy there is a tendency to drop. In each case 
there has been a retreat of vital force. In the one 
instance the light layer of flesh is drawn after the 
receding force; in the other the partially dis¬ 
mantled substance is left to the law of gravitation. 
In each instance there is a degree of devitaliza- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 51 

tion, an easily recognized and preventable dis¬ 
placement of power. To one who gives any at¬ 
tention to his own vital processes, this movement 
of withdrawal will be felt before there is any out¬ 
ward appearance of change. The hands and arms 
are early victims, the roundness of youth giving 
way to a certain flatness; the surface of the legs 
flattens, producing the lean shanks of Shakes¬ 
peare’s old man. A noticeable withdrawal of 
power is from the crown of the head—the active 
vitality of this important layer of flesh is so im¬ 
paired that the coloring matter for the hair is 
reduced or altogether fails—sometimes the hair 
itself disappears. At the same time a certain 
looseness of the scalp, which is observable in 
early years, gives way to tightness, so the flesh 
seems to adhere to the bones of the skull. The 
breast and muscles of the chest are affected as in 
the case of the throat, and either shrinkage or 
sagging takes place. We know the well de¬ 
veloped chest and breast are essentials of youth¬ 
ful vigor; they are among the outward and visi¬ 
ble signs of that inward and spiritual grace which 
we name youth . It is time for us to realize that 
the neglect of the outward signs involves, or 


5 2 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

rather indicates, a spiritual neglect, a lowering 
of the moral fibre. 

In a recent publication of Dr. Serge Voronoff, 
of Paris, old age is characterized as a period of 
“physical and moral degradation. ^Vhile we 
easily recognize the degrading character of 
senility, we are accustomed to evade the issue and 
look upon it as inevitable. Yet if senility were 
inevitable, it would not indicate moral degrada¬ 
tion, because morality implies free-will. It may 
be seen that without loss of morale the encroach¬ 
ments of old age could not come upon us. 

La Rochefoucault declared that neither the 
sun nor death can be looked upon steadily. Old 
age borrows its repugnant aspect from death. It 
flaunts death’s insignia and shares with death the 
disadvantage indicated by La Rochefoucault. 

Dr. Edward Mercer doubts whether we are 
really capable of undertaking a dispassionate 
study of death, because the contemplation of 
death has a powerful disturbing effect upon the 
emotions; yet the inability to look death steadily 
in the face need not prevent us from examining 
the effect of its initial encroachments. By study¬ 
ing the first indications of its blighting touch we 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


53 


may learn to circumvent these early maneuvers. 
By pushing back the enemy here and there we 
may gradually learn to control the situation. 

The throat, breast and chest are closely related 
to the problem of the retention of youth. In the 
foreground of the throat, astride the windpipe, 
is the thyroid gland. Dr. Voronoff, who has be¬ 
come famous for his study of the glands, says that 
all our organs depend upon a liquid which the 
thyroid gland elaborates and continually pours 
into the blood, charged to carry it to all our tis¬ 
sues to insure their functioning. “The removal 
or disability of the thyroid causes a man to lose 
his psychic faculties and transfers a youthful 
being into a precociously old man.” 

The studies of Dr. G. W. Crile have shown 
that the substances produced by the thyroid gland 
give the body much of its virility and liveliness. 
They furnish ferocity to the fighting soldier and 
youthful charm to the young man of peace. The 
excessive functioning of this gland, as in Graves’ 
Disease, has a peculiar and dangerous effect, the 
most obvious symptom being an exaggerated 
pushing forward of the inner forces, particularly 
in the eyes and throat. The resulting prominence 


54 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


of the eyes is one of the chief symptoms of the 
disease and the swelling of the throat takes the 
form of goitre. Minor symptoms are indicative 
of irrational, because ill-regulated, youthfulness; 
yet so many persons beyond middle age suffer 
from an insufficiency of thyroid secretion that this 
condition is probably the usual one. 

The study of the glands is recent, and their 
varied functioning is not yet well understood. 
Dr. Voronoff, one of the chief exponents of gland 
grafting makes only modest claims for its possi¬ 
bilities. Such surgical operations have been dis¬ 
appointing in many instances; the results are not 
enduring. On the other hand a knowledge of 
the glandular functions may be most useful if 
intelligently applied. The fact that so many per¬ 
sons in middle life show signs of degenerative 
decay first of all in the throat and the region of 
the eyes, makes it evident that our attention 
should be directed to the preservation of this in¬ 
teresting thyroid gland which is so intimately 
connected with these parts. Any indication of 
the withdrawal of the forces from the throat or 
eyes should be immediately corrected. Our first 
move is very simple, to change the prevailing 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


55 


direction, to substitute for a backward pull a for¬ 
ward push. We find the force is amenable. We 
may, for example, push forward from behind the 
throat and eyes with such vigor that a slight sore¬ 
ness may be felt subsequently. If one cannot im¬ 
mediately command the forces to this extent, one 
at least may acquire this command with a little 
practice. Massage may be helpful, drawing the 
blood to the surface and invigorating the entire 
region. It will be easily seen that massage of the 
throat muscles tends to benefit and increase the 
functional power of the regional glands, the thy¬ 
roid and the no less important but more minute 
parathyroid glands situated on each side of the 
thyroid. But massage is after all only auxiliary. 
Our chief method is to direct the attention of the 
retreating force and thus to divert it. An experi¬ 
ment may illustrate the power of attention. 
Plunge the hand and forearm into a jar of tepid 
water. See that the jar has been filled to the brim 
and then concentrate on the submerged parts. 
The jar will presently overflow. It will be seen 
that the little effort of attention has directed the 
life force to the submerged parts, the most observ¬ 
able effect being a slight increase in bulk. Direct- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


56 

ing the attention to the eyes, we soon feel the 
forces welling into the ball and lids, adding size, 
luster and functional power. If we wish to see 
a street sign that seems just beyond the eyes’ 
reach, we have only to concentrate and wait 
calmly for a few moments, and the lettering is 
revealed. In whatever region we may feel the 
pull of age, we should form the daily habit of 
concentrating attention upon these deficient parts, 
drenching them thoroughly with the life force at 
our command. The habit once formed can be¬ 
come permanent, and the common loss of func¬ 
tional power and the appearance of ravage may 
be overcome, or altogether prevented. 

The vivifying force is most simply supplied to 
the lungs and chest by the use of that “fly wheel 
of the machine”—the breath. Simple rhythmi¬ 
cal breathing bringing into activity every avail¬ 
able lung cell without undue strain, will resusci¬ 
tate not only the important functions of the chest, 
but intelligently used such exercises are capable 
of reconstructing the entire body on better lines 
and with increased functional power. 

The body undergoes constant change, whether 
we will or not. That the change may be for the 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


57 


better, it remains for us to take command of the 
forces by the power of attention and direct them 
consciously and intelligently. It has been ob¬ 
served that nature is both constructive and de¬ 
structive. We are constantly either consciously 
or unconsciously employing the constructive 
forces, or we are the victims of the destructive 
forces. Our allotment of power should be so well 
trained that it quickly obeys a word of command. 
There is never any lack of force. If we suffer, 
it is because we have failed in intelligent direc¬ 
tion. 

There is so much power that it is entirely pos¬ 
sible to concentrate too much on certain parts of 
the body. Breathing exercises, for example, may 
be overdone by the inexperienced, but this is an 
unusual mischance. A large majority of persons 
have insufficient nourishment from the breath 
while the number who habitually practice quiet, 
deep, rhythmical breathing is small. The prac¬ 
tice is most useful in the art of directing the 
forces. In India breathing exercises are an im¬ 
portant part of the training of youth. The In¬ 
dian theory is logical and practical. Quoting 
from the Swami Vivekananda’s book, “Raja 


^ 8 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

Yoga”: “Rhythmical breathing tends to bring a 
rhythmic action in the body and helps us through 
the respiratory centers to control the other cen¬ 
ters. The first effect of rhythmical breathing is 
that the face changes; from day to day harsh lines 
disappear .... When all the motions of the 
body have become perfectly rhythmical, the body 
has, as it were, become a gigantic battery of the 
will.” 

The breath is so closely allied to the spirit that 
the words have nearly the same meaning. Ten¬ 
nyson says: “The spirit does but mean thy 
breath.” 

The practice of deep rhythmical breathing 
with the ability to control the motions of the body 
cannot be acquired by the peevish, the ill-tem¬ 
pered, the envious, the erratic, the hopeless, the 
broken-hearted, the impious, the fanatic, the man 
of evil principle or device. On the other hand, 
the gay, the cheerful, the well-wisher, the wise, 
the determined, the hopeful, the aspiring one, the 
pure, the devout, the Christ-like—these may gain 
the victory. They may consciously retain or re¬ 
gain youthful vitality and power. 

Those of us who have such qualities only in 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


59 


crude elemental incompleteness, with attention 
can bring them to fruition. The ability to ac¬ 
quire the attributes of youth is the reward of 
patience, judgment, tact, love. Faithful, well- 
directed effort cannot go unrewarded. 

Infinite power is so close at hand that if we do 
not put it to use it will crush us. Contemporary 
physics has resolved the universe into a manifes¬ 
tation of energy. The very atoms are teeming 
with power. The atom too small to be discerned 
with the human eye has within itself a constella¬ 
tion of electrons, charges of electricity “which 
move within the atom as planets within the solar 
system.” Our task is to use what we need and to 
put aside what is superfluous. 






Man does not yield himself to 
Death save by the weakness of his 
mortal will. Glanville 














- 











V 




\ 













CHAPTER V 



UR time normally is divided into 
periods of activity and periods of 
rest. This is as it should be; a 
period of rest is attributed to the 
Deity after the labors of creation. 
Nature requires a period of com¬ 
parative inaction to accumulate energy for re¬ 
newed activity; yet in experience we find weari¬ 
ness an erratic thing. 

Though labor that is undertaken with joy and 
enthusiasm is followed by an only normal desire 
to rest, nevertheless we may feel tired at the very 
beginning of our task, or a sense of weariness may 
come in the early stages of our undertaking. We 
are perhaps discouraged and if free to do so we 
may turn to something else. If, however, instead, 
we persist, we may have an experience that is col¬ 
loquially termed “second wind” and go on with 
the affair with perfect ease. And the phenome¬ 
non may occur more than once as we proceed, 

63 



64 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

We have tapped new and newer layers of energy. 
There is, we know, an inexhaustible supply. 

William James says “Men habitually use only 
a small part of the powers which they actually 
possess and which they might use under appro¬ 
priate conditions .... It is evident that oui 
organism has stored up reserves of energy that are 
ordinarily not called upon, but that may be called 
upon, deeper and deeper strata ... of com¬ 
bustible material ready for use.” 

That these reserves of energy were given us 
primarily for the purpose of preserving life we 
cannot doubt. They furnish the power of recu¬ 
peration after illness; they hedge about every 
crisis of life; they come to us in times of danger 
when extraordinary powers may be required to 
preserve our lives or the lives of others. Again, 
they may surprise us at odd moments. Perhaps 
we are walking quietly on a spring day. We have 
been tired and suddenly we are not tired any 
more. We have, as it were, stumbled on a new 
layer of energy. We feel that we could scale 
high mountains, toss boulders into the abyss, or 
hurl thunderbolts about, but these things are not 
convenient. ^Ve should, instead, catch this force, 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 65 

examine it, learn to understand it, and then put 
it to that use for which it was created, that is to 
preserve and enhance the life within us. 

“He hath conquered monsters; he hath solved 
riddles, but besides he should change his mon¬ 
sters and his riddles; he should alter them into 
heavenly children.” The force may be deliber¬ 
ately thrown into those parts of our being where 
it is most needed. We have only to stand before 
a mirror and concentrate upon any visible part 
of the face or body and restoration, partial or 
complete, takes place before our eyes. This 
restorative power must be used persistently; the 
whole body must be frequently flooded with life 
force before we can learn to hold it, continuously 
maintaining poise without effort. Deafness may 
be cured by massage about the ears. Osteopa- 
thists use this reasonable method and have fre¬ 
quently allayed or cured this affliction in more 
or less advanced stages. The throat muscles un¬ 
der the ear are closely connected with the tympa¬ 
num, and the nerves and muscles about the nose 
and mouth are also connected with the ears. 
Massage and kneading in these localities is bene¬ 
ficial to the hearing and has cured cases of 


66 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

deafness of such long standing that physicians of 
the old school would consider them altogether 
hopeless. 

The eyes, like the ears, may be strengthened 
and defects of vision cured by massage of ad¬ 
jacent parts. In this way the nerves are stimu¬ 
lated, the blood stirred to greater activity and the 
tissues moved to more vigorous life. In civilized 
countries a large majority of people suffer from 
defective vision, and we have seen that the re¬ 
gions of the eyes and throat are most intimately 
associated with the retention of youth. If we 
could keep these parts in a normal, healthy con¬ 
dition the youthful well being of the other parts 
would automatically follow. 

Bernarr Macfadden propagates a most useful 
system of eye exercises, which has already bene¬ 
fited not only thousands of school children with 
defective vision but probably an even greater 
number of persons in later life. He recommends 
rubbing and gently manipulating the parts about 
the eyes; also a series of eye exercises. These 
were tested in the public schools in New York. 
The details are given in the New York Medical 
Journal, July 29, 1911, and August 30, 1913. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 67 

Among three thousand children with defective 
eyesight the reports showed that more than a 
third gained perfect vision in both eyes after us¬ 
ing the exercises recommended. 

The number of school children with defective 
vision is surprisingly large and the proportion 
increases steadily in the higher grades. In later 
life normal vision becomes actually rare. 

The most useful exercises in preventing incipi¬ 
ent defects is the practice of reading distant small 
letters or figures for a few minutes every day. 
The figures on a calendar, or the lettering on the 
covers of a book, may be used for practice. For 
greater distances the reading of street signs and 
advertisements is useful. The Snellen test card 
is the most convenient for this purpose. Each 
line of the card is designated by a number indi¬ 
cating the distance in feet at which it should be 
read by the normal eye. Letters to be read at 
fifteen feet are a quarter of an inch square. In 
some instances glasses which have been used for 
years have been discarded after a period of in¬ 
telligent and persistent use of the exercises. 

All our ailments are due either to an insuffi¬ 
ciency of force in certain localities, usually owing 


68 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

to the fact that it has been crowded out of these 
parts, or to a local superfluity of force causing 
inflammation of fever. Pain comes to direct the 
attention, and hence the forces, to the deficient 
parts. But pain usually exceeds its raison d’etre, 
and it may cause swelling, morbid growths, or 
other unwonted disturbances of normal health. 
If we had sufficient understanding we could an¬ 
ticipate the pain and prevent the indisposition 
altogether. An incipient sore throat, for ex¬ 
ample, may be met and overcome; aided it may 
be by massage. Forms of rheumatism and many 
other painful disorders are centered about por¬ 
tions that are dull and almost lifeless. Ability 
to direct the forces would prevent or cure every 
conceivable disease. In recommending massage 
and the direction of the life forces, it must be said 
that good as these expedients are they would be 
inadequate to the retention of life far beyond its 
present span. As aids they have great value. 
When man reaches a higher plane of spiritual 
attainments they can be forgotten. We all have 
moments of exaltation when we are restored to 
primal well-being without effort. 

The welling-up of power which takes place at 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 69 

an emotional crisis, such as fright, anger, grief, or 
jealousy, comes for the purpose of overcoming 
the cause of this adverse disturbance. It is puerile 
to use the force on the emotions themselves, as is 
commonly done. The first obvious effect of the 
crisis, like the first symptom of most illnesses, is 
a rise in temperature; the face flushes, the eyes 
glisten, there are unmistakable evidences of un¬ 
usual power, even of well-being. A woman may 
be more beautiful in anger than in calmness and 
repose. Yet if the forces are not put to good use 
the reaction is devastating, exhausting. 

Our own habits of years and the habits of the 
race for countless generations must be overcome. 
This change of habit cannot be brought to com¬ 
pletion in a day, a month, or a year. Yet we 
know that the force which we have observed in 
the performance of comparatively trifling opera¬ 
tions is a force which is practically unlimited. 
We know this from the testimony of approved 
scientists, if we fail to recognize it in our own 
experience or with our intuitional power. To say 
that we can temporarily restore natural force and 
contour by concentrating our attention for a few 
minutes, but that given time and sufficiency of 


70 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


supply we cannot restore the whole body to youth** 
ful exuberance and retain it in this condition for 
three hundred years, is like saying of a mathe¬ 
matical problem that 2 + 2 = 4, but that 2000 + 
2000 cannot by any possible calculation equal 
4000. 

A little child by the seashore can divert a tiny 
rivulet from its direct course to the sea, and re¬ 
tain it for a while in a little pool or force it into 
a winding channel. Acting on the same principle, 
a body of men directed by engineering experts, 
could stop the flood of Niagara and, supposing it 
were desirable to do so, direct its flow into a mul¬ 
titude of small channels resembling the canals on 
the planet Mars. The engineers would put to use 
the same principle that served the child at the 
seashore. It is forever true that water will seek 
to find its way to the sea, as it is forever true that 
the soul seeks to find its way to the Creator. That 
the way of successive births and deaths is the 
wholesome and desirable way, the best way, it is 
difficult to believe. 

Death, revolting to all our instincts, is obnox¬ 
ious first of all because we reasonably fear to lose 
ourselves in its maze and so fail to attain our goal. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 71 

Some years ago I had occasion to read several 
hundred letters sent to the family of a young man 
who had died. Not one of these letters touched 
upon the one item surpassing every other in sig¬ 
nificance. The overwhelming grief evoked by 
the disaster was the principal consideration of 
the kindly letter-writers, many of whom sincerely 
loved the departed and inevitably had some part 
in the sorrow of the stricken family. Such an 
occurrence rarely fails to rouse wide sympathy; 
the bitterness and woe of those closely associated 
with the deceased is understood or surmised. The 
fact that the principal in the drama has met with 
disaster exceeding in magnitude any yet experi¬ 
enced by a single one of the survivors is a fact 
rarely touched upon by mourners who are usually 
stunned by the blow and whose intelligence is 
diminished or in abeyance and may be even per¬ 
manently impaired. 

In the second volume of the published letters 
of the late Henry James is a letter of condolence 
which portrays a broader outlook. In this spon¬ 
taneous outburst of affection and sympathy for 
the widow of his friend Julian Sturgis there is 
acute understanding of the calamitous event 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


72 

which has fallen upon the bereaved and at the 
same time a brave endeavor to gauge the pur¬ 
port of the matter to the one most concerned. 

“Dearest Mrs. Sturgis: 

I ask myself how I can write you and yet 
how I cannot, for my heart is full of the 
tenderest and most compassionate thought of 
you, and I can’t but vainly say so. And I 
feel myself thinking as tenderly of him, and 
of the laceration of his consciousness of leav¬ 
ing you and his boys, of giving you up and 
ceasing to be for you what he so devotedly 
was. And that makes me pity him more than 
words can say—with the wretchedness of 
one’s not having been able to contribute to 
help or save him. But there he is in his sac- 
r ifi ce — a beautiful, noble, stainless memory 
without the shadow upon him or the shadow 
of a shadow of a single grossness of mean¬ 
ness, of ugliness—the world’s dust on the 
nature of thousands of men. Everything 
that was high and charming in him comes 
out as one holds on to him, and when I think 
of my friendship of so many years with him 
I see it all as fairness and felicity, and then 
I think of your admirable years and I find 
no word for your loss. I only desire to keep 
near you and remain more than ever yours. 

Henry James.” 


oee, I have set before thee this day 
life and good, and death and evil. 

Deut. 30, 15. 

For God created man to be immor¬ 
tal and made him to be an image of 
his own eternity. 

The Wisdom of Solomon 2, 23. 

And deliver those who through 
fear of death were all their life time 
subject to bondage. 


HeB. 2, 15. 


CHAPTER VI 



ROM early times there has been a 
tendency in the various branches 
of the Church to moderate the 
ancient liturgies in order to shield 
the people from certain caustic 
truths associated with death. At 
the Triennial Convention of the Protestant Epis¬ 
copal Church in America, held in September, 
1922, it was moved further to change the Service 
for the Burial of the Dead, in order to make it 
“less unpleasant.” A few crude dismaying Bible 
texts are still in use. These the Convention was 
asked to abolish. The ministers of many of the 
sects are free to modify the liturgy as they think 
fit. These divines rigidly expurgate. They tol¬ 
erate no phrase which is noxious or offensive. 
Their function is to lull and soothe. They em¬ 
ploy sonorous fragments, soft melodies, modern 
verses of cloying sentimentality. No fact on 
earth calls more urgently for the exercise of in- 




j 6 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

telligent consideration than does this fact of 
death, because no fact is of such sinister impor¬ 
tance. It should be faced with every faculty alert. 
The ancient liturgy does not seek to hide the 
harsh sharp edges of truth; yet the same liturgy 
has many fairer phrases for other occasions, 
felicitous language, which though unrelated to 
present day habit and belief is still in use. 

In the Communion Service of all branches of 
the Anglican Church, the rubric requires the 
priest to say twice to each individual communi¬ 
cant the phrase “preserve thy body and soul to 
everlasting life.” It is a very happy phrase and 
probably is used by the clergy more often than 
any other in the prayer book. It generally passes 
unrebuked, yet it is not believed. The communi¬ 
cant does not expect his body to be preserved to 
everlasting life; he expects it to be claimed by the 
common enemy and turned to dust. Yet the 
phrase has a pleasant sound and may help him to 
forget that which he most dreads. 

Death is inevitably defeat. Our whole being 
is so revolted by the thought of it that we de¬ 
liberately harden ourselves against the idea. For 
others death may be close at hand; for us the 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 77 

shuddering horror is too remote to be considered 
in its actual detail. We try to think of something 
else, or we veil it under a camouflage of fiction. 
The signs of its rapid approach come more often 
than not as a surprise to the one most concerned. 
Since prehistoric times, religions of different 
races have spontaneously declared the doctrine of 
life after death, the instinct of life in the face of 
death having been of sufficient force to amount 
to a revelation. The Christian Church has laid 
great stress on this teaching, and a prayer for pro¬ 
tection at the time of death has become the most 
popular prayer in Christendom. The Rosary, 
said to have been established in the thirteenth 
century by St. Dominic, exacts ten Hail Marys 
for one Our Father. Little children learn to lisp 
“Pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our 
death.” This phrase is used one hundred and 
fifty times in the Rosary as defined in the Roman 
Breviary. A somewhat reduced form is also 
used. In the Angelus the prayer is used three 
times. 

Nor is the Church of Rome alone in making 
death the central thought in the prayers of the 
people. The prayers of the Protes'tants, though 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


78 

generally less specific, have this thought promi¬ 
nently in the background. Countless millions of 
church members seek the ministrations of the 
priests and pastors, not only to support them 
through the dread ordeal, but to sustain them 
through life in what can only be described as a 
state of hypnosis in regard to the facts of death. 
Protestants have not only prayers but numerous 
hymns that are marvels of ingenuity as hypo¬ 
thetical deductions, remote not only from scien¬ 
tific fact but from the actual teaching of the 
Scriptures, more especially of the Gospels. A 
few voices have been raised to protest against this 
gross misunderstanding of nineteen centuries, this 
wilful misrepresentation of the original sources 
of religious teaching, but the protest generally 
has not been heeded. Why? Because the hypno¬ 
sis is so deep; men refuse to be aroused from this 
dulling of the senses against the horrid fact of 
death. They cling so lovingly to their illusions, 
veiling the truth. And so death becomes a fetich, 
one of the main assets of church attendance and 
support. 

Some City Churches have the name and ad¬ 
dress of the parish undertaker printed in gilt let- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 79 

ters after the name of the minister on the outside 
walls of the church edifice. 

In 1889, Friedrich Nietzsche, a careful stu¬ 
dent of the Bible and a direct descendant of a line 
of clergy, wrote on this subject: “The entire con¬ 
cept of natural death is lacking in the Gospel. 
Death is no bridge, no transition, the concept is 
lacking because it belongs to an entirely different 
world.’’ And again of the Church which he 
names Anti Christ: “People were unspeakably 
far from our own affectionate and prudent 
neutrality, from that discipline of the intellect 
which alone makes it possible to find out such 
unfamiliar affairs. With an insolent selfishness 
they erected the Church out of the antithesis of 
the Gospel. The history of Christianity is the 
history of the gradually grosser and grosser mis¬ 
understanding of the original symbolism. That 
mankind should bow the knee before the an¬ 
tithesis of that which was the origin of the mean¬ 
ing and the right of the Gospel, that they should 
have declared holy precisely those features in the 
concept of the Church which the Bringer of glad 
tidings regards as beneath Him and behind Him 
—one would seek in vain for a grander form of 
grand historical irony.” 


80 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

This is Nietzsche’s summing up of the teaching 
of Christ. 

“What is glad tidings? True life, eternal life 
has been found—it is not promised, it is there, it 
is in you.” 

The value of life—this life—was the supreme 
teaching of Christ. His attitude toward death 
was as our own in kind. In degree we may say 
that our antipathy was in Him infinitely multi¬ 
plied. Unlike St. Paul, he did not discourse 
eloquently on corruption. His sensitiveness was 
such that He preferred to deal with life without 
antithesis. When He referred to death at all He 
preferred to speak of it as sleep, as the laying 
down of life, as the destruction of the temple or 
otherwise metaphorically. When He is con¬ 
fronted with the dreaded fact itself there is evi¬ 
dence of nervous shock. 

His friend Lazarus is dead. He sets forth to 
call him back from the grave telling His dis¬ 
ciples of His intention. Yet when He comes to 
the place He is so overcome with the horror of 
the disaster that it is recorded that He wept. His 
finely attuned nervous system is for the moment 
distraught. Well knowing the happy outcome 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 81 

He is yet moved to tears. One hesitates to quote 
the words of Christ because it is difficult to re¬ 
ceive them without prejudice. They are so often 
misused, misapplied, the original meaning is 
nearly forgotten. They become worn and trite 
with much handling and so we fail to do them 
justice. Also the personalities of some of those 
most fond of quoting are somewhat antipathetic 
to many of us. Much, too, is made of another 
difficulty: the words of this Man, who more than 
any other changed the world, come to us not as 
He originally said them, but doubly or trebly 
translated. In the face of these difficulties, it is 
yet possible to read the words of Christ as we 
have them, to consider them as a whole with what 
we know of His life and work and get what we 
cannot but believe is the essential thing in His 
message. He spoke constantly of life—life 
abundant, life eternal—life in reiteration. He 
said, “I am come that they might have life and 
that they might have it more abundantly.” To 
attain holiness was to enter into life—the terms 
were synonymous. Life was the essence of holi¬ 
ness, beauty, love; death the essence of sin, ugli¬ 
ness and hate. The Kingdom of Heaven was the 


8 a 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 

state of the heart, not something which was to 
come after death. 

One of the by-products of the World War was 
the cult of the so-called psychic phenomena, 
which arose like a miasmic cloud from the fields 
of battle. Hundreds of publications on the sub¬ 
ject appeared, many of them purporting to be 
inspired or dictated by departed spirits. The 
publishers presumably supplied a ready demand 
and some of the authors were men of established 
reputation in the fields of drama, fiction, philos¬ 
ophy and even science. The books were all more 
or less religious in design and all sought to teach 
that death is an improvement. A few quotations 
are selected from two of the most famous of these 
publications. They are chosen to illustrate the 
world’s hypnosis when confronted with the prob¬ 
lem of death. Suffering humanity seeks and de¬ 
sires to be deceived on this subject. In no other 
way is it possible to account for such a lowering 
of intelligence and reasoning power as is en¬ 
countered. Even the public exposure of some 
well known medium has little effect upon the 
main body of believers. They continue to be¬ 
lieve because they wish to do so. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


«3 


In an essay on “The Power of the Dead, 5 ’ 
Maurice Maeterlinck has this to say on the sub¬ 
ject of departed spirits: “Their thoughts and 
their desires are always higher than our own. It 
is therefore by uplifting ourselves that we ap¬ 
proach them for the dead whatever they may 
have been in life become better than the best of 
us. The least worthy of them in shedding the 
body have shed its vices and wickedness . . . and 
the spirit alone remains, which is pure in every 
man and able to desire only what is good. There 
are no wicked dead because there are no wicked 
souls.” 

In “The Abolishing of Death,” by Basil King, 
the departed spirit, through the writer, says of 
death: “It is more like leaving prison for free¬ 
dom and happiness . . . No wish of ours is ever 
left unsatisfied . , . We have all your senses and 
ours too.” 

Not even the hymns of the various sects are so 
well fitted to illustrate the hypnotic power of the 
illusion induced by the thought of death. If one 
believes it, how can one escape from the deduc¬ 
tion that homicide is an act of mercy and suicide 
a duty—incumbent upon us all? A number of 


84 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

suicides which followed the course of Sir Conan 
Doyle when he was in America in 1922 were 
directly attributed to his teaching. 

It should be said that the leaders of this move¬ 
ment are not men of anaemic type. If one judges 
from the photographs familiar to readers of 
popular magazines, they are lusty and well con¬ 
ditioned, probably even over fond of the flesh 
pots of Egypt; yet they infuse an insidious doc¬ 
trine to which the feeble and credulous succumb 
with deleterious consequences. 

In a current magazine an authorized investiga¬ 
tor has asserted that “No spiritualist in the his¬ 
tory of the world has ever produced an effect 
which the magicians cannot exactly duplicate 
under identical conditions. No medium has ever 
appeared before a body of trained magicians 
without being thoroughly exposed, no medium 
has ever been able to produce a single super¬ 
normal effect under conditions which made trick¬ 
ery impossible.” 

Laws which protect the public against impure 
food and drugs by prohibiting false labels on the 
containers should be extended to prohibit also the 
sale of reading matter falsely superscribed. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 85 

Much of this “literature of death” bears mislead¬ 
ing nomenclature, as “The Abolishing of Death.” 

When titles of such publications are baldly 
misleading one could reasonably prosecute. 
Maeterlinck’s essay carries a title which is mala¬ 
droit, to say the least, “The Power of the Dead” 
as well say The Whiteness of Black,—The Love¬ 
liness of Hate,—The Honor of Ignominy. 

A grave-yard aroma intoxicates many and the 
thirst for phenomena is hardly less prevalent to¬ 
day than it was in mediaeval times. Spiritualism 
and psychic research are merely aspects of the 
ancient necromancy, masquerading under another 
name, against which so many of the wise and 
great in all ages have warned in no uncertain 
terms. 


* 


£ OR man immortality is what rea¬ 
son is for the animal. The reason 
of the existence of the animal king¬ 
dom is a reasonable being. The 
reason of the existence of mankind 
is an immortal one ... as the 
animal world gravitates toward rea¬ 
son so humanity gravitates toward 
immortality .... Death is an evi¬ 
dent victory of unreason over reason, 
of chaos over cosmos. 

Vladimir Solovieff 


■ 





















CHAPTER VII 



: UMAN life is notably cheapened 
; in two ways: by war, and by war’s 


complement, a prolific birthrate. 
Lothrop Stoddard says: “The real 


enemy of the dove of peace is not 
the eagle of pride or the vulture 


of greed, but the stork.” If the advocates of birth 
control claim too much when they assert that all 
war is due to the driving power of a population 
too large for its boundaries and its natural re¬ 
sources, this at least was clearly behind the re¬ 
cent world war; unchecked it will tend to be¬ 
come a greater and more virulent cause of con¬ 
flict if, as time goes on, the populations continue 
to increase. Among the lower species, as we have 
seen, nature makes prodigious provision against 
extinction. Her precautions have not been in¬ 
variably successful. Some species have become 
extinct. Nature made the mammoth too big, and 
the mammoth perished from sheer bigness. Man 
was made much smaller than the mammoth, and 



90 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


is perhaps exactly the right size. Nature has 
taken great pains with him. In man is an intri¬ 
cate organ which had been only sketchily de¬ 
veloped in earlier species; it was like a new 
experiment on nature’s part. Man was given a 
highly specialized brain which facilitated his 
prowess in arts and crafts, sciences and industry; 
and at the same time he was made capable of 
developing certain spiritual faculties, faculties 
which brought him into direct communication 
with mighty forces of good and evil. It was in¬ 
tended that these gifts, stupendous advantages 
over the lower creation, should make it possible 
to substitute regeneration for reproduction. 
There are many evidences of nature’s early pur¬ 
pose and later apostasy. Man had every organ 
and every faculty required for this new event. 
There was ample material for necessary repair, 
sufficient intelligence and ability to reduce waste 
to a minimum; and above all there were those 
psychic qualities which made it possible for him 
to communicate with the highest wisdom, to align 
himself with the highest power. Man was poten¬ 
tially perfect because of this exalted communi¬ 
cation, this powerful alignment 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 91 

But man fell from his high estate. He adopted 
the customs of “the beasts that perish,” customs 
that he would have never known without their 
example, customs which to this day he cannot 
know without initiation. 

He reproduced his kind and made way for 
another generation. Once more nature had failed 
of her purpose. All the older forms of religion 
clearly recognize the defection involved in the 
substitution of reproduction for regeneration. It 
was not until comparatively a recent period that 
the ancient rite of Purification after childbearing 
has been generally discarded. Sin offerings and 
prayers for Atonement are no longer in vogue. 
Women are not now required to refrain from 
touching any hallowed thing for a period of time. 
— (Leviticus 12, 4.) 

Yet remnants of the old teaching are still in¬ 
cluded in the Church Prayer Books. In the 
Service for the Ministration of Baptism, the 
phrase “All men are conceived and born in sin” 
has given offense to many generations of church¬ 
goers. Passionate efforts have been made in the 
past and are being made at the present day to do 
away with this odious statement. Those sects 


Q2 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

which are unhampered by tradition have sub¬ 
jected the Service for Baptism to the same refin- 
ing process applied to the Burial Service. Harsh, 
repellent, acrid phrases are rejected to be re¬ 
placed by smooth, genial, winning fatuities. 
Every religion has been subject to this tendency 
to emasculate the original sources. As in an 
earlier period, the people still “say to the seers, 
See not; and to the prophets, Prophecy not unto 
us right things, speak unto us smooth things, 
prophecy deceits.” 

It is well known that from early times to the 
present day a large proportion of men and 
women, of the highest culture and distinction, 
men of individuality and genius, have left no 
children. This was a notable fact in the days 
when the birthrate was comparatively high and 
it is more marked at the present time. Until very 
recently many of the best of human kind were 
cloistered. Today, though the Church claims a 
smaller proportion, celibacy among the higher 
classes increases and parenthood decreases. This 
was true before the war, and already there has 
been a fall in the birth rate since the usual post¬ 
war acceleration. It is increasingly true that a 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 93 

considerable proportion of the youth of the 
higher classes are finding it inconvenient or un¬ 
desirable to marry. At a somewhat later period, 
when the inconvenience is perhaps removed, the 
inclination is not of compelling force. It is well 
understood that the growing disinclination for 
parenthood cannot be universally condemned any 
more than a readiness for prodigal production 
can be universally extolled. If we compare a 
large group of childless persons with another 
group of more than ordinarily fecund parents, 
casually selected, the latter group will un¬ 
doubtedly suffer. In Berlin, for instance, as in 
Paris, the proletarian quarters of the city show a 
birth rate more than three times as high as the 
birth rate in the better sections. 

Worcester’s dictionary thus defines the adjec¬ 
tive proletarian—“low, base, vile,” yet the real 
meaning of the word is “producer of children.” 
It originated in Rome where the class was not 
altogether despised, as H, G. Wells assures us. 
Its function was of Value to the state, which was 
at that time in need of colonists to form new Latin 
cities, or to garrison important points. The 
higher classes in Rome were notably deficient as 


94 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

breeders of children. Among the higher classes 
today the desire for children continues to de¬ 
crease as individuality becomes more defined. 

C. W. Saleeby, in “The Cycle of Life,” says 
“A cardinal fact in physiology is an antagonism 
between reproduction and individuation ... in 
the human race this antagonism is one of the most 
self evident of facts.” 

In the lower forms of life, both animal and 
vegetable, the individual is little more than a 
host for the reproductive function. In the higher 
forms of life the importance of the individual 
increases while the reproductive function is sub- 
ordinate. 

Again from Saleeby: “We can imagine start¬ 
ing with the race which is all race and not in¬ 
dividual at all; we may end with the individual 
which is all individual, the race living on in the 
individual.” 

It has been observed that the cosmic root of the 
distaste for sensuality is this natural antagonism 
between individuation and reproduction. An in¬ 
dividual who holds aloof out of regard for his 
own individuality is more inclined to honor the 
individuality of others. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 95 

The earth labors to produce the supreme indi¬ 
vidual—the super man. Understanding of this 
fact is evolving in the human consciousness today. 
It is evident in literature, in drama. Fiction no 
longer sets itself to complicity of plot and coun¬ 
terplot but to the psychological development of 
the individual. 

It may yet be shown that a hitherto undreamed 
of economy of birth sets free a body of creative 
power which will be used for individual develop¬ 
ment. This creative power has served certain of 
the elect in all ages and may be increasingly 
understood. 

Since prehistoric times many religious and 
political leaders have taken it upon themselves to 
encourage multiplicity of births. A parent is 
taught to feel that he has not lived in vain, how¬ 
ever ineffectual his life may have been aside from 
the production of children; there are a variety of 
wise sayings, Biblical and others, to support his 
self-esteem. It is quite true that if his other ac¬ 
complishments are meagre he may have some 
reason to hope that his children may do better. 
This type of man is referred to in the Psalms. It 
is there said of men who have produced a “quiver 


96 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

full” of children “They shall not be ashamed 
when they speak with their enemies in the gate.” 

The ineffectual man who is also childless, may 
reasonably hang his head. Yet there is another 
class of childless men who may pass their enemies 
in the gate unbowed and unafraid. Jesus and 
Paul were childless. Paul strenuously advocated 
the condition of celibacy. It would be difficult 
to say how large has been the proportion of the 
childless among the great leaders of men—states¬ 
men and warriors, as well as poets, prophets, and 
philosophers, the truly useful ones. Millions 
deliberately hid themselves in cloisters and labo¬ 
ratories; many others left illustrious names. 
Julius Caesar, Raphael and Michelangelo, 
Washington, Beethoven, Disraeli, Wordsworth, 
Carlyle, Franklin, Pope, Ruskin and Nietzsche 
left no direct heirs. 

If the illustrious individual has children at all 
they are merely incidental; the preponderant 
part of his creative ability has gone into his work 
tending to benefit all mankind. Children of 
great men are almost invariably disappointing. 
They bear the onus of a great name lacking the 
ability to wear it gracefully. They rattle about 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 97 

in it like Tom Thumb in the boots of Jack the 
Giant Killer. 

Genius—great creative ability of any kind, is 
unthinkable without great procreative power. 
Intellectual ability does exist in cold natures but 
lacking the “elan vital” it is sterile, compara¬ 
tively useless. Yet it should be understood that 
sexuality per se is an offshoot of the creative urge, 
a parasitic growth tending to detract from its 
primal virtue. Scientists cannot tell how or when 
the Universe was created, but it is safe to say that 
it was an original product of the creative urge. 
Sexuality came aeons after the beginning of 
things. It was evolved even later than the earli¬ 
est forms of animal life. Sexuality is still a mere 
pimple on the body of creative force. The pro- 
creative ability is again and evermore available 
for regenerative purposes. And since superior 
individuals are less and less inclined to repro¬ 
duce, a rapid advance in this cult of regeneration 
is necessary to the survival of civilization. Na¬ 
ture’s preposterous effort and flagrant failure to 
establish regeneration roused a desperate need. 
The old makeshift reproduction was thrust for¬ 
ward as a subterfuge. As such it necessarily has 


98 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

some pleasing qualities of its own, otherwise it 
would not have been accepted and the race would 
have perished. Nature resorted to all sorts of 
cunning tricks to cover up her fiasco, to disguise 
her pitiful pis alter, to give it lustre and dignity, 
even a sort of unctuous eminence, which it retains 
to this day. Love if not blind is lamentably 
myopic. The reproductive instinct has almost 
infinitely disastrous power. To say it has 
wrecked innumerable lives, has instigated wars 
and overthrown kingdoms is merely to skirt the 
outlines of its malefic empire. “By anything less 
than love many men cannot be induced to commit 
a crime, to be guilty of treason, to reanimate in 
themselves such feelings as they thought to have 
killed out long ago.” 

In the religion of the Hindus love and death 
are the two faces of one deity. Siva, the god of 
the creative forces, is at the same time the god of 
violent death, murder and destruction. Our own 
God of love is represented as sitting on a throne 
giving eternal life to those at His right hand 
while those at His left hand are cast out into 
eternal darkness. This duplex function is plainly 
regeneration versus reproduction. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 99 

A new standard continues to evolve. A man 
who can make his own life an end in itself has no 
need for olive branches. The paternal instinct is 
very strong in the man who is losing hope of his 
own powers of attainment. In his son he looks 
for the joy of vicarious distinction. As his own 
personality grows more ineffectual he turns pas¬ 
sionately to his offspring for self-justification. It 
is then that he begins to whimper for someone to 
be the hero he once wanted to be; someone to 
boast about when he is with his associates at his 
club. 

Saleeby says of the bee society: “The highest 
development of the individual by far is found in 
the females who are not mothers. They have 
renounced maternity, as it were, and have become 
masterpieces of life .... The so-called queen, 
the only mother in the hive, is, to speak frankly, 
a fool, incapable of looking after herself, and so 
far from being a queen, does not direct or control 
the least of her own activities, to say nothing of 
those of the hive or any individual in it.” 

In the vegetable world, natural death can be 
postponed if the plant can be prevented from 
seeding. One of the concerns of the gardener is 


ioo The Rehabilitation of Eve 

to nip off the little buds of certain of the flower¬ 
ing plants in order to enhance the life of the 
plants. 

Hence it is not surprising to learn that those 
Viennese Scientists who are interested in the re¬ 
cent cult of rejuvenation, have made use of some 
of the same experiments which have been em¬ 
ployed by gardeners for many generations. Ex¬ 
periments demonstrate that if the reproductive 
function is paralyzed, the internal, the regenera¬ 
tive function tends to “proliferate and expand.” 
It is true that the regenerative function process 
may be enhanced in many instances without ren¬ 
dering the subject incapable of parenthood; in 
other instances, simple and logical sterilization is 
called for and administered. It must be under¬ 
stood that sterility does not involve loss of love. 
Love and life are both enhanced. It is only in 
the sterile that love may be said to come in to its 
own. 

The distinguished sociologist Gabriel de 
Tarde in his profoundly suggestive essay on love 
says: “It is evident that though born as the serf 
of generation, love tends to be freed from it. In 
place of a simple method of procreation, it be¬ 
comes an end, it has created itself a title—a royal 


The Rehabilitation of Eve ioi 

title. Our gardeners cultivate flowers that are all 
the more beautiful because they are sterile. 

Why is the double corolla of love held more 
infamous than the sterilized flowers of our gar¬ 
dens? Love now attracts to itself the best and 
highest parts of the soul, where lies the hidden 
ferment of all that is great in science and art.” 

Philosophers and scientists have been at great 
pains to devise reasons to account for those very 
human qualities—modesty and shame. The 
State, the Church and the individual conscience 
guided by high standards of reasonable ethics and 
altruism may approve of those preliminary and 
ultimate notions, directly or indirectly asso¬ 
ciated with the affair of reproduction, yet against 
reason, against the sensual allure, against the in¬ 
evitable spiritual exaltation associated with every 
creative process there remains innate and inerad¬ 
icable an instinctive revolt, a revolt taking the 
form of injured modesty and shame. Philoso¬ 
phical debate fails to account adequately for this 
uncanonical dissent. The habits, even of savages 
and aborigines have aspects of careful modesty 
and fierce reserve. This necessity for reserve, the 
demand for a covering of fig leaves was the im- 


102 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

mediate consequence of the fall of our first par¬ 
ents. It remains true to this day, that the primal 
destiny of man calls for a process of continual 
regeneration of the individual. Reproduction 
undoubtedly opposes itself to regeneration and 
this opposition is apprehended by the human 
consciousness which probably never fails to regis¬ 
ter some degree of resistance or of regret for its 
failure to conform to the rulings of its higher 
nature. 

It will not be denied that the production of 
superior progeny is still an act of high service to 
the social state, but it should be understood that 
a higher form of service is possible and desirable. 
The period of child-bearing is generally short. 
At any time only a small proportion of women 
are actually begetting children or caring for 
babies. After the age of thirty-five most women 
desire to turn to other things. Beyond that age, 
women are more and more seeking social and cul¬ 
tural advance. The churches, women’s clubs, 
even the colleges are receiving them. We read 
of women taking college courses with their 
daughters or sons. Desired opportunities for cul¬ 
ture and self-expression are sometimes lacking at 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 103 

an early age. Later on, obstacles may be cleared 
away and men and women begin to discern the 
meaning of life; they discover not without sur¬ 
prise how good it is to be alive. They seek pas¬ 
sionately for a wider understanding, a lifted 
horizon. Many are mentally more alert, more 
avid for gain in the thirties and forties than in 
the ’teens! Men often find the expansion they 
need in their business affairs. Motherhood in the 
twenties may also open the way to a wider out¬ 
look, a keener desire to expand in the years that 
follow under the caption “Doing Nothing Isn’t 
Done.” An editorial in a recent issue of a wom¬ 
an’s fashion magazine declares—“It is no longer 
the mode to be decoratively useless. Clever 
women know how to do things these days; they 
sing, or paint, or dance, or act, if they have native 
talent for the arts. They train themselves in 
grace and diction. They practice landscape gar¬ 
dening or interior decoration. They study such 
behind the scenes arts as housekeeping, servant 
training, and the mysteries of cooking. Some of 
the boldest spirits even enter a profession like 
their brothers. Add a new line to your reper¬ 
toire this winter.” 


104 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 

It is well understood that the countries having 
the highest birth rate, also have the highest death 
rate; the two counts are aligned though the pro¬ 
portions are not always exact. Before the war 
among the European nations, Russia headed both 
lists and Hungary came second in both. China 
and India, though uncounted, are known to have 
exceeded Russia in both lists. Yet China is at 
the mercy of little Japan, and India is under the 
dominion of England with its proportionately 
small number of births and deaths. 

Havelock Ellis says on this subject: a nation 
with a high birth rate is not in a state of efficiency. 
That high birth rate is the mark of immaturity, 
defective civilization and general inefficiency. 
Exactly in the degree in which the birth rate de¬ 
clines . . . efficiency is found to be increased.” 

Lothrop Stoddard in the last chapter of his 
book, “The Revolt Against Civilization,” makes 
a desperate and wholly unsuccessful effort to 
suck hope from the doctrine of the eugenists. He 
sees no other prospect of salvation than in the 
immediate adoption of the program thus defined: 
“The problem of eugenics is to make such legal, 
social and economic adjustments that (i) a larger 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 105 

proportion of superior persons will have children 
than at present; (2) that the average number of 
offspring of each superior person will be greater 
than at present; (3) that the most inferior per¬ 
sons will have no children; and (4) that other 
inferior persons will have fewer children than 
now.” 

The trend of the stream of life long has been 
far from this project, and in the last decade, there 
has been such a rushing flow in the opposite 
direction that to expect the current to turn in its 
course is like asking Niagara to climb back over 
the mountain precipice. Salvation lies in work¬ 
ing with the stream, instead of against it. 

Even scientific discoveries which aimed to 
favor race betterment, in fact have tended toward 
the preservation of the unfit, and “are at present 
working mainly in the direction of racial decay 
by speeding up both social sterilization of su¬ 
perior stocks and the multiplication of inferiors. 
The result is a process of racial impoverishment 
extremely rapid and ever accelerating.” 

Nature is ever ready to supply quantity. Sal¬ 
vation demands quality, not more lives but more 
life; more time to demonstrate the ideal. Being 


io 6 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

very nearly swamped by quantity, hope is not yet 
extinct because in all classes there are still su¬ 
perior individuals pressing forward for salvation 
—passionately eager for enlightenment leady to 
follow the gleam upward, out of the mire into 
the promised land of the heart s desire. 


When Adam and Eve were im¬ 
mortal it was necessary that they 
should make the earth an extremely 

comfortable place to live in. 

If you take a house on a ninety-nine 
years’ lease you spend a good deal of 
money on it. If you take it for three 
months you generally have a bill for 
dilapidations to pay at the end of the 
time. . . . 

Creative evolution is unmistakably 
the religion of the twentieth century. 

Bernard Shaw 






X" 














j 









* 



CHAPTER VIII 



NDER creative evolution the 
fetching standard of the Epicu¬ 
reans would no longer attract 
“Let us eat and drink for tomor¬ 
row we die.” Self-control, cul¬ 
ture, service, of what avail if 
death creeps on apace. Many still advocate this 
reasonable doctrine and more follow it. We will 
change all that when it is understood that we have 
at our command not only sufficient power but suf¬ 
ficient time to avail ourselves of our resources. 
In the past when a man met a series of disappoint¬ 
ments before the age of thirty-five he too often 
felt that his losses were irretrievable, his future 
was circumscribed, and his person stamped with 
the ineffectual. Two important assets may avert 
insolvency—love of the end to be attained and the 
realization that abundant time is available. It 
may be observed that many of the best spirits 
come into the world ill adjusted to mundane con- 




no 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


ditions. The personality which presents itself 
“four square” may not be essentially more worthy 
than the personality which fits less easily or not 
at all the prepared place. In this predicament 
many valuable lives have been either cut off in 
youth or rendered palpably ineffectual—lives 
which might have been saved by an understand¬ 
ing of the infinitude of time and the vastness of 
opportunity. One may easily understand that if 
each youth were assured of a period of time ap¬ 
proximating three hundred years in which to 
achieve his ideals, his outlook upon life would be 
transformed, his desire to attain would be in¬ 
finitely increased because of the prospect of en¬ 
during results. There would be vastly greater 
incentives to self-restraint, wise education and 
personal culture, not only of the intellectual 
faculties but along the lines of morals and esthet¬ 
ics. If we may eat and drink for an infinitude 
of tomorrows, the motive is immediately strength¬ 
ened; the inducement is great for worthily par¬ 
taking of such nourishment as may sustain the 
body for an enduring instrument of power to the 
soul. It is impossible for us to conceive of a bet¬ 
ter instrument for the growth of the soul than is 


The Rehabilitation of Eve in 

the body as we know it at its best. Nor is it pos¬ 
sible for us to conceive of a Heaven more beauti¬ 
ful and more desirable than is this sorry and 
tumultuous planet as it may be at its best. In the 
scriptures Heaven is portrayed in earthly terms 
as a beautiful garden and again as a golden city. 
If we believe the Creator of this world could like¬ 
wise create other and subsequent conditions for 
the soul which would be more favorable, we are 
halted by a wall of inexperience, surmounted by 
a maze of heady and illogical surmise, contrary 
to scriptural teaching, “He that is unjust let him 
be unjust still, he that is filthy let him be filthy 
still, he that is righteous let him be righteous 
still.” 

Our highest aim is to be like Christ. He Him¬ 
self as he approached the grave of Lazarus de¬ 
clared, “Whosoever liveth and believeth in me 
shall never die.” In this speech death obviously 
signified death of the body. Those who quote it 
to signify life after the death of the body take it 
forcibly from its context and relieve it of its orig¬ 
inal meaning. St. Paul elaborated this teaching. 
We find his clearest and best exposition in the 
eighth chapter of Romans. 


112 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


An old and nearly forgotten expositor com- 
pared the Bible to a jeweled ring. The New 
Testament is the jewel of the ring and Romans 
VIII the gleam of the jewel. St. Paul gives us 
clear and very simple rules for the attainment of 
immortality. It is true that immortality is not 
to be attained, as it were, on the spur of the mo¬ 
ment, but our difficulty need not be for lack of 
understanding. St. Paul’s teaching could be 
made clear to an intelligent school boy. 

After a life of extraordinary strenuosity, the 
Apostle was martyred in Rome. His failure to 
carry to completion in his own life the foremost 
tenet of his teaching, has induced misunderstand¬ 
ing and unbelief. The lesson has been almost 
wholly neglected. We accept the ring but allow 
the jewel to grow dull and gleamless. The teach¬ 
ing of the Church has been, as we have seen, 
primarily a preparation for death, a Rosary of 
petitions for pity, a teaching of negatives, a re¬ 
iteration of Thou shalt nots. One who will con¬ 
tinuously avoid a succession of evils nevertheless 
sees himself continuously approaching an end 
which is in itself so revolting that he needs help 
through life to sustain the dreadful thought of it. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 113 

How different is the Spirit of the Lord’s Prayer 
where we are taught to pray for the coming of 
God’s Kingdom on Earth. Also from St. Paul 
who said we wait for the redemption of the body. 

Both Christ and St. Paul taught for future 
generations, perhaps most of^all for us. St. Paul’s 
text is, “To be carnally minded is death, to be 
spiritually minded is life and peace.” We are 
carnally minded when we are submerged in the 
grossly material; we are spiritually minded when 
we think upon what has only a superficial rela¬ 
tion to material things. .More simply the life of 
spirit proceeds from love and beauty, death from 
hate and ugliness. 

If one would put this to the test let him repeat 
from memory the lines of some inspired poet, or 
philosopher, lines which seem to him beautiful 
and lovely, and if he has in any degree entered 
into the spirit which inspired these lines he will 
feel a certain freedom of the body, a loosening as 
of bonds, the nerves are stilled, the face becomes 
smooth, the expression tranquil. The significance 
of these physical changes should not be over¬ 
looked. If we will attend to the processes of that 
force which for good or ill is continually reform- 


114 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 

ing the material of the body we can, if we will, 
remodel the docile fabric until we have ac¬ 
quired the body we desire, the form best suited 
to our end and aim, even the image and likeness 
of God. 

Walter Pater says of the portrait of the Mona 
Lisa Giaconda, by Leonardo da Vinci, “It is a 
beauty wrought out from within upon the flesh, 
the deposit little cell by cell of strange thoughts 
and fantastic reveries and exquisite passions. 

. . . Thoughts and feelings have etched and 
moulded there in that which they have of power 
to refine and make expressive the outward form.” 
This significant criticism has become nearly as 
famous as the portrait it characterizes. 

Thus the contemplation of art may raise the 
soul to the spiritual plane. Our eyes see the ma¬ 
terials which the artist has employed, but the 
spirit grasps the idea which animated him. This 
idea possesses us to such an extent that we have 
for the moment forgotten material things, our 
own bodies and even the matter before us upon 
which we gaze. This brief absence from the 
body has given the material parts a refreshing 
rest which is better than sleep. Having ceased 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 115 

to worry the body with meddlesome thought we 
are immediately subject to higher vibrations 
which transform and transmute. This is the new 
birth of the scriptures. In the ascending spiral 
of progress after man has learned to direct the 
life force to those bodily parts where it is most 
needed, he learns again to forget the forces in the 
new freedom. The second forgetfulness is almost 
infinitely removed from the first state of gross 
carelessness. The story of man’s rise to higher 
things is of necessity a “book of paradoxes.” 
Each one understands this from his own experi¬ 
ence. “We are aware of the stirring within us 
of what seems to be a new faculty, a new purpose, 
even a new being. In moments of rare penetra¬ 
tion the outer crust of our ordinary personality 
appears to dissolve for a little and the radiance of 
an inner man transfigures the exterior nature.” 

We must watch for the thoughts and moods 
which give the body this freedom. The devout 
may attain it by prayer and ejaculation with con¬ 
templation. Enthusiastic activity for others and 
for ourselves may give it to us. Love gives it. A 
man of fifty making love is transformed into a 
charming boy. When love carries us out of our- 


n6 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

selves then the body is free and youth is attained. 
If we have no enthusiasms, no love for God or 
God’s Creation, then we are stagnant, fit only for 
the mire. “Because thou art neither cold nor hot 
I will spue thee out of my mouth.” Thus the 
Creator in the Book of Revelations. For many 
the churches give the desired freedom. For 
those who are not fortunate enough to have felt 
it for themselves the loosening of bonds may be 
observed in others who go in and out of the great 
cathedrals. Like the beggar who hopes for your 
pittance at the door, you may stand within and 
gather crumbs from the countenances of those 
simple ones of all classes who have cast off their 
fetters before the Altar of God. 

In an earlier chapter we have noted the value 
of concentrating the attention upon the throat, the 
place of the thyroid gland and upon the region 
of the eyes. In religious and artistic exaltation 
this is done automatically; the muscles of the 
throat and eyes press forward without effort be¬ 
cause the mysterious product of the thyroid 
glands is at such times very active. All parts of 
the body, especially the eyes, are refreshed and 
vitalized. If we could retain the freedom of 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 117 

such exalted moments, we would never need to 
consider material aids. 

To achieve such freedom and to sustain this 
condition is possible to any of us if we have time 
to acquire the habit To gain time we must keep 
the body young. Youth and growth are nearly 
synonymous. If we have achieved spiritual 
growth since yesterday and are on the way to 
fresh achievement tomorrow, then the body is 
cherished and preserved. If our prayers and re¬ 
ligious practices are helping us thus to enhance 
life, we have the religion of Christ. If our re¬ 
ligious profession and practice have failed to en¬ 
hance life, then we have deceived ourselves. Let 
us put all our thoughts and emotions, all our 
habits, to this test. Do they nourish, preserve and 
enhance the life forces? Can we through them 
rise above the lower order with its elements of 
destruction into the sphere of the higher life? 
The whole race is hungering and thirsting for 
this life of the Spirit. The prevalence of drug 
taking and indulgence in alcohol show a desire 
to rise by artificial means to a spiritual plane. 
These may simulate in effect true spiritual exalta¬ 
tion as closely as gross metal may be made to 


118 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

simulate gold. Both the true and the artificial 
exaltation are subject to reaction, but in the one 
instance there is a residuum of permanent gain 
and in the other an ugly aftertaste, a nervous 
shock of relapse, which if often repeated may 
seriously injure the entire system. 

True exaltation is essentially religious, but it 
is not confined within the limitations often put 
upon this greatly misunderstood term. 

“Each soul is potentially divine. The goal is 
to manifest this divinity within by controlling 
nature, external and internal. 

“Do this by work, or worship, or psychic con¬ 
trol, or philosophy, by one or more or all of these 
and be free. This is the whole of religion. Doc¬ 
trines, or dogmas, or rituals, or books, or temples 
or forms are but secondary details.” 

All the arts, too, are capable of lifting man out 
of the elemental self, and in this lies their value. 
Music to many makes the most direct appeal to 
the higher emotions. Architecture has made a 
very wide contribution to the uplift of the human 
race. How difficult it would be not to pray in 
some of the cathedrals and in some of the more 
ancient temples of the gods. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 119 

To others the painter’s art brings the desired 
effect. A visit to an art gallery may be a spiritual 
adventure of considerable import. In the con¬ 
templation of Botticelli’s Spring, the Sistine Ma¬ 
donna, or some of the Valesquez portraits, there 
is discovered within us a certain refining read¬ 
justment of the material forces. There is unques¬ 
tionably a physical change for the better and 
probably a permanent one. Schopenhauer says, 
“In artistic and religious perception we have the 
consciousness of spiritual freedom and an ether¬ 
like at-homeness everywhere in reality, which is 
the highest efflorescence of life, a kind of salva¬ 
tion or exaltation in which everything that savors 
of bondage, restriction, restraint, and misery 
seems to pass away. The rest and repose that we 
find in true art and true religion come from that 
consciousness of having potentially attained to a 
perfection which we instinctively regard as the 
end of our being. . . . The kernel of true re¬ 
ligious feeling is only a reflex of the deep calmful 
satisfaction felt in looking upon beauty as always 
affording its votaries a peace that the world can¬ 
not give.” 

If art has the power to exalt the spirit and to 


120 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

adjust the forces of the body for the attainment 
of youth and immortality, the contemplation of 
nature is no less potent. Nature in her finest 
aspects can by turns soothe, beguile, stimulate, 
and exalt us. Wordsworth classified the love of 
nature with the religious sentiment, as Schopen¬ 
hauer classified the love of art. 

To many of us poetry, of all the arts, has done 
most to exalt the spirit and so enhance the life 
forces. In his book on “How to Live on Twenty- 
four Hours a Day,” Arnold Bennett gives poetry 
a prominent place. For those who fail to attain 
the poetic mood he has other practical sugges¬ 
tions. Clearly the sterile one is innately perverse. 
Bennett’s book is a protest not only against ma¬ 
terialism but against a stupid and inane expendi¬ 
ture of time. Trifling and pettiness may be more 
wearing to the spirit than actual grossness, be¬ 
cause grossness usually brings a forcible reaction. 

I know a woman who won a college degree for 
her prowess in mathematics. She tells*of a lus¬ 
cious joy of suspense preceding the discovery of 
the beautiful, inevitable logic of a proposition of 
Euclid. “It is so true,” she says with shining 
eyes. In her face is the aspect of eternal youth. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


121 


It is her belief that while poets and philosophers 
may cleverly surmise, it is only the mathema¬ 
ticians who veritably understand the significance 
of exactitude and truth. Perhaps this is an un¬ 
usual means of transport, but each of us has some 
enthusiasm capable of lifting u$ out of the mire. 

There is material all about us to nourish the 
immortal element. Every breath we draw works 
its change. The thought which comes to us at the 
same time will determine whether that inhalation 
shall work good or ill. 

Emerson says, ‘‘Whenever we are sincerely 
pleased we are nourished.” The spirit, like the 
body, needs variety. There are pleasures of ease 
and pleasures of combat, pleasure of friendly in¬ 
tercourse and the pleasure of retiring into the 
closet to pray in solitude. There are moods of 
passion and moods of intellectual power, mo¬ 
ments of insight. Let us grasp them all as they 
come and incorporate the life in them, “little cell 
by cell,” into our being, with method and delib¬ 
eration. If difficulties arise we may remember 
that the contribution of victory in combat may 
be as the polished corners of the temple. Perhaps 
the victory is delayed—the bitterness and corro- 


122 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

sive power of defeat would be taken away, if we 
felt in ourselves not only a force in reserve for 
continued and well directed effort, but also a suf¬ 
ficiency of time. 


iolitical and social problems can¬ 
not be solved by mere human mush¬ 
rooms who decay and die when they 
are just beginning to have a glimmer 
of wisdom and knowledge needed for 
their own government. . . . The 
statesmen of Europe were incapable 
of governing Europe. What they 
needed was a couple of hundred 
years training and experience. 

Bernard Shaw 



CHAPTER IX 

MAY be put forth as an axiom 
that if men were agreed upon a 
wise expenditure of power in any- 
given direction in preference to 
all others, progress would ad¬ 
vance an hundred-fold. Man¬ 
kind would move forward with such strides that 
the activities of the past would look like the ac¬ 
complishment of pygmies by comparison. Even 
failing unanimity of action, if a multitude of 
strong folk, a fair portion of the whole, were thus 
held in unity of purpose, having agreed upon a 
definite aim, the long looked for salvation soon 
would be achieved, the millenium would be at 
hand. Men never have worked with anything 
approaching unity of purpose, hence a devastat¬ 
ing waste. 

Against the constructive ability of man is his 
power of destruction. Events of the last decade 
suggest a maelstrom, a vertigo of power, 

125 




126 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

A virile child left alone for an afternoon with 
a generous supply of blocks and toys, will take 
pleasure in the construction of walls and pyra¬ 
mids, arsenals, showing, perhaps, a certain prom¬ 
ise of resource along these lines. The ability to 
construct gives him an agreeable sense of power, 
a very precious belief in his own worth, a distinct 
cosmic push along the lines of his personality. 
These new-found sensations delight him for a 
time; he determines to advance in greatness. 
When he finds his initial joys have a tendency to 
pall, with no lack of faith in his own ability to 
cope with the void, he turns his attention to his 
destructive powers. In these he discovers a still 
greater charm, a more rapid and obvious appeal 
to his imagination. Thus walls are laid low, 
pyramids are demolished, pictures and books are 
torn, crockery is shattered, a broken doll is grist 
to the mill of his growing egotism, sawdust is 
strewn about, tin soldiers are bent and pounded. 
The aspect of the room at the end of the afternoon 
suggests an earthquake, a deluge, or the passage 
of an invading army. All this is a display of val¬ 
uable motive force. The child is wise in his time. 
His parents may be inconvenienced but secretly 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 127 

they applaud. The child’s actions are in accord 
with the doctrine of the philosopher, “A living 
thing seeks above all to discharge its strength. 
Life itself is will to power; self-preservation is 
only one of the indirect and most frequent results 
thereof.” 

In 1914 man looked upon the earth and found 
it good. After a century of unprecedented 
achievement in industry, commerce, engineering, 
and science, man, reeling with a sense of power, 
turned upon his own kind in a delirium of de¬ 
struction so acute that one may thank Heaven that 
as yet human skill has certain limitations. 
Though force has no discoverable limit, the abil¬ 
ity to manipulate force as yet is circumscribed, 
otherwise who can doubt that there would be no 
fair city left upon the earth, no smiling villages 
upon the hillsides, no concourse of human beings 
spared who would be adequate to the task of re¬ 
constructing a new order from the remnants of 
the old. 

Before the war the vivid fancy of H. G. Wells 
occupied itself on this subject. He portrayed a 
more advanced development of aviation that 
would make it possible to send heavy armaments 


128 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

into the air. Bombs, in this fiction, became more 
destructive with the invention of new explosives. 
With armies thus equipped and able to take rapid 
flight under cover of the night, it is easy to see 
that what remained after a world war would be 
little and scattered. The destruction which actu¬ 
ally took place by means of bombs thrown by avi¬ 
ators, though sufficiently alarming, was far less 
than had been predicted by Wells; the art of de¬ 
struction at that time fell short; the world was 
saved by a narrow margin. Had the war come 
only a few years later the worst that was pre¬ 
dicted could have taken place. Already, since 
the war, the looked-for advances have been made. 
In 1922 the British Parliamentary Air Commit¬ 
tee reported that “this country could be raided 
and London and other towns destroyed. . . . All 
great wars in the future will begin with terrific 
battles in the air, and if any country suffers a real 
defeat in her first battle, the victor will, in a few 
days, destroy her ports, her railway centers, her 
munition factories, and her capital, by intensive 
bombardments from the air.” The committee 
stated that instead of the usual bombs averaging 
one hundred pounds, bombs now are carried of 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 129 

four thousand pounds’ weight, “which may be 
filled with material even more harmful than high 
explosives, such as concentrated poisoned gas 
or germs.” 

At a luncheon at the Hotel Victoria on the 
28th of July, 1922, the Prime Minister, speaking 
of the League of Nations, said, if it “fails, and 
I speak advisedly, civilization is doomed—is 
doomed. You have explosive material littered 
all over Europe. Conflict comes with a sudden¬ 
ness that is appalling.” 

The rage to conquer on all sides has been so 
great that it is fair to assert that after sacrificing 
so much the fact that we have now enough left to 
establish a new order, is a condition imposed 
upon us against our wills and against our best 
efforts. That we are not without hope is attribut¬ 
able not to the will of man but to the formerly 
existing limitations of man’s power to use destruc¬ 
tive force. We love war and few of us deny it. 
The French have a phrase “Nostalgie de com¬ 
bat” We read of soldiers in the French hospitals 
suffering from this homesickness for the battle¬ 
field, living only to return to the front, pleading 
for an opportunity to fight again. The Paris 


130 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


Figaro of September 17, 1914, has a story of one 
such soldier, mortally wounded, and tells it as 
typical of the many. He pleads to return 
“Quand on est la-bas on est comme au-dessus de 
soi-meme, on ne sent plus la fatigue, ni la souf- 
franee, on ne veut qu’une chose. Avancer! Ah! 
Recommencer!” 

A very popular book during the war was Von 
Bernhardi’s “Germany and the Next War.” It 
was well known in pre-war days, but it attained 
its greatest popularity outside of Germany while 
the war raged. Bernhardi quite frankly disbe¬ 
lieves that any nation could be honest in its desire 
for peace and looks upon any efforts in that direc¬ 
tion as a subterfuge. He asserts that any “efforts 
directed toward the abolition of war must not 
only be termed foolish but absolutely immoral, 
and must be described as unworthy of the human 
race.” Of the efforts of passivists he says, “Pa¬ 
cific ideals, to be sure, are seldom the real motive 
of their action. They usually employ the need of 
peace as a cloak under which to promote their 
own political aims—they try to exclude all 
chance of contest with opponents of their own 
strength, and thus avoid the stress of great politi- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 131 

cal emotions, without which the moral develop¬ 
ment of national character is impossible. Arbi¬ 
tration treaties must be peculiarly detrimental to 
an aspiring people which has not yet reached its 
political and national zenith and is bent on ex¬ 
panding its power in order to play its part honor¬ 
ably in the civilized world.” 

Treitschke, another well-known German, said, 
“God will see to it that war always recurs as a 
drastic medicine to the human race.” 

It is sometimes said that war is waged princi¬ 
pally for the benefit of capitalists and political 
leaders who drive the people on for their own 
ends. Yet the facts are that an unpopular war 
soon would collapse if it ever got beyond the ini¬ 
tial stage. The populace demanded war, a few 
years ago, and a political leader, like Wilson, 
who wished to hold the people back, was abused 
and vilified until he consented. 

In 1915, before Italy declared war, there were 
war riots and the leaders would have had diffi¬ 
culty in restraining the people much longer. 

When war is over and peace is declared the 
warriors return to their homes, if they are fortu¬ 
nate enough to have homes outside the devastated 


i 3 2 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


regions. If their homes are destroyed they find 
some substitute for a home; they accept federal 
aid or charity; the standard is lowered. There is 
some grumbling, but the majority feel satisfied to 
pay the price for their excitement. They are 
inured to hardship and know they are fortunate 
to have escaped with their lives. They are back 
in the humdrum world again, and the main con¬ 
sideration now seems to be the breeding another 
generation for another war. A rise in the birth 
rate is always an aftermath of conflict. There 
must be no lack of material when again occasion 
arises for nation to rise against nation, kingdom 
against kingdom. The thing has gone on in a 
vicious circle, ever growing more deadly, until 
civilization has reached a point where it must 
either change its direction or perish. Let us not 
blur the issue, nor turn upon it with myopic 
vision. Half-way measures have been tried and 
have failed. The dilemma must reach its logical 
outcome unless a radical change is brought about 
in the spirit of the people. 

Several years before the war H. G. Wells pre¬ 
dicted a lull in scientific achievement and inven¬ 
tion. He said, in effect, that materially there was 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 133 

no new thing to invent. A quarter of a century 
earlier the coming developments were sufficiently 
indicated. The world looked from day to day for 
some new device, some material advance. New 
conveniences, new forms of industry continually 
were being involved. Continually there were 
new excitements to wonder and admiration, new 
reasons for hopefulness and content. 

But before the war it seemed to Wells that in¬ 
ventors had no new tricks to perform, that they 
must content themselves with becoming more 
dexterous with the old. There was an obvious 
lull after a period of unprecedented accomplish¬ 
ment in construction. Like the child who no 
longer found anything to build, man reveled in 
his ability to destroy. Continually generating 
new power, failure to construct inevitably led to 
destruction. A lull in achievement fails to im¬ 
pose a lull upon active force. Periods of quies¬ 
cence in historic times have been times of diabol¬ 
ism, witchcraft, disease and individual rapacity. 
Suicide is notably increased in times of surface 
ease and serenity. The race, like the individual, 
continually must advance or relapse. In either 
instance, power is at work. Death, like birth, is 
labor. 


134 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

To many the affair seems hopeless. Is it hope¬ 
less? Science tells us that within the body is an 
antidote for every disease. A powerful antidote 
is needed for a dying race. A little correction of 
detail, a little uplift here and there, will not suf¬ 
fice. A Peace Conference led by men of the old 
regime with the old traditions cannot but fail. It 
degenerates into an arms conference. There 
is distrust and suspicion—unwillingness to con¬ 
cede. 

While political leaders were discussing ways 
and means to limit armaments, at the Washington 
Conference, the following statement was received 
from the American Legion: “The American 
Legion recognizes the demand for retrenchment 
and reduction in governmental expenditures, but, 
as practical men who have learned the lesson of 
preparedness by the hard experience of war, we 
are confident that it would be a great mistake at 
this time to limit the proper functioning of the 
National Defence Act by a reduction in the esti¬ 
mates as submitted by the War Department and 
approved by the Budget Committee. Any ma¬ 
terial cut will seriously affect an adequate na¬ 
tional defence of our country and will tend to 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


135 


bring it below what is recognized as a proper 
margin of national safety.” 

Great hopes of the success of the Washington 
Conference were generally held at the beginning. 
Near the end, its most hopeful critic, The New 
York Times, said, “The outcome is very much of 
a nullity.” Of some of the final resolutions, the 
same critic said, “This is a plain confession that 
the Washington Conference itself discovered that 
it was against a stone wall and could do nothing.” 

At Westminster Hall, January 21, 1922, Lloyd 
George, speaking in favor of holding a confer¬ 
ence in Genoa, the third conference of the winter, 
urged the need of a thousand experts to assist and 
advise. “These experts,” he said, “are cheaper 
than military experts, their retinue is smaller. 
One thousand experts, and we have just con¬ 
cluded an argument conducted between these 
same nations lasting four and a half horrible 
years! There were 30,000,000 men engaged in 
that conference. There were 10,000,000 of young 
men left dead on the debating ground, 10,000,000 
more mutilated, fifty billions of expenses. Peo¬ 
ple may better try another conference.” The pa¬ 
pers said he evoked “loud and prolonged cheers.” 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


136 

Now we know that visions of serried rows of ex¬ 
perts redundantly informed and probably bespec¬ 
tacled, would not draw cheers from anybody. 
The Prime Minister used the emotional appeal 
of war, as many lesser men have done, to obtain 
his ends. He got his experts. He was allowed to 
“try another conference.” The results are well 
known. The Geneva Conference left the inter¬ 
national situation worse than it found it and 
brought about the downfall of the minister who 
instigated it. 

War has what might be called a “strangle¬ 
hold” upon the imagination of men. The Peace 
Societies, like the conferences, work hard and 
achieve little or nothing. The arguments for 
peace are sound, but no great cause was ever won 
by argument alone. A new and vital interest is 
essential for salvation. A few experts of another 
order than were called for by Lloyd George 
might achieve an actual revolution in the hearts 
of men, point a new channel for their desires, a 
few men and women who love life enough to hold 
it and cherish it, who through their sixties and 
seventies and eighties will retain their youthful 
outlines, their youthful poise and aplomb, and 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


137 


thus dispel the horrid vision of old age which 
haunts the dreams of the young. The habit of 
youth once acquired by those of mature years, 
by those experts who have become the vanguard 
of salvation, may be retained with comparative 
ease. The thing can be done and if a few proceed 
to do it, they soon will have the multitude at their 
heels and war will be forgotten like a child’s 
plaything. 

Governments should appoint commissions to 
investigate the claims of the new life. Scientific 
facts in regard to the superabundance and per¬ 
sistence of the life forces should be promulgated. 
If it were generally known that life is benefited 
and enhanced by the occasion of the climacteric, 
a prolific source of dread and distress would be 
removed. Men should know that protoplasm is 
increased with advancing years, and should be 
instructed in the method of taking advantage of 
this increase. A little enquiry will bring forth a 
multitude of instances of enhanced life and well¬ 
being in the fifties and sixties and onward. When 
the word goes forth, instances will multiply in 
geometrical proportions. When the word goes 
out authoritatively denying the myth of the neces- 


138 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

sity for degenerative old age and death, there will 
be a gigantic forward push in the progress of 
mankind such as the world never yet has seen. 

Such governmental commissions should deal 
with the accredited facts. The prophets have pre¬ 
pared the way; the multitude already presses for¬ 
ward to accept the promised salvation. Any indi¬ 
cation of fulfillment will be eagerly accepted and 
readily understood, because every individual has 
in himself the potential requirements. Multi¬ 
tudes are already showing signs of astonishment 
at the evidences of their own resources—many 
are puzzled and seek direction. 

It was confidently assumed in early times that 
our sun went around the earth. When astrono¬ 
mers asserted the contrary men were loath to be¬ 
lieve it. The dictum of the astronomers went 
against the evidence of the senses. For genera¬ 
tions, not only the Church but the mass of the peo¬ 
ple refused to accept what we now know is incon¬ 
trovertible. The law of the reversion of forces 
dimly perceived by science, but as yet not forcibly 
presented, will upon such presentation be more 
quickly accepted, even against the mass of prece¬ 
dent that can be brought to controvert it. Why? 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 139 

First of all because the time is ripe. Then we 
know that, while the acceptance of Galileo’s the¬ 
ory did not essentially change the life of the gen¬ 
erality of men, an acceptance of the law of the 
reversion of forces immediately would affect 
every individual who is brought to consider it. 
Newton saw an apple fall to the ground and pro¬ 
pounded the law of gravitation. In its more ele¬ 
mentary aspects this law was intelligible to the 
meanest capacity. Of late, somewhat modified, 
it serves as a working hypothesis. The law of the 
reversal of forces resembles the law of gravitation 
in its simple obviousness. It differs as a working 
hypothesis because it is subject to the will of man, 
and because it shows the way to the fulfillment of 
the dearest desires of his heart. 












An ego which does not change 
does not endure. To exist is to 
change, to change is to mature, to 
mature is to go on creating oneself 
endlessly. 


Henri Bergson 


X 


/ 






Chapter X 



NE of the essentials of success in 
life is readiness to work with the 
current which bears us on. Aging 
persons oppose their feeble wills 
to this beneficent force. Per¬ 
versely they try to remain static 
while nature makes for continual change. 
Whether we will or not, the body changes, but 
the aged have learned to retard the movement to 
a considerable degree. So they become like stag¬ 
nant pools instead of like rippling brooks. Un¬ 
opposed, the continually active cells are endlessly 
creative. Even the aged have a new body every 
year, while a normally active, happy creature 
changes obviously from day to day. All soft 
parts of the body are renewed in a few days or 
weeks at most. The skin is continually shedding 
its “horn” in minute particles and these changes 
are facilitated by exercise and the daily bath. 
The interior of the body is being incessantly 
143 



144 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


washed by little renovating rivulets of blood. 
This blood contains soapy substances peculiarly 
fitted to cleanse and carry away all that has lost 
its newness and freshness. It is only through vio¬ 
lation of natural law that old age conditions ap¬ 
pear. When we greet a friend whom we have 
not seen for several days, we greet a new friend, 
as there is little on the surface of the body which 
we have seen before. The new material, to be 
sure, is very like the old, and if our friend has the 
age habit he has, from sheer perversity, contrived 
to make the new look old and worn. His ideas, 
too, conform as nearly as possible to the ideas he 
had last week. He cannot surprise us. We know 
all his reactions, his probable comment on the 
weather, or upon such occurrences in his neigh¬ 
borhood or elsewhere as have forced themselves 
upon his attention. If we, too, have the age habit 
we like him chiefly because he fits our lives like 
an old shoe. The traditional superiority of old 
friends is an indication of indolence in the race. 
Other things being equal, new relationships are 
more advantageous than the old. The breaking 
up of a friendship of long standing may not only 
open the way to newer, fresher, more stimulating 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


145 


associations, it may also stimulate a more cordial 
intercourse with the cosmic forces. Nature ab¬ 
hors a vacuum. Casting the eyes back over a 
period of years, we perceive, in the severing of 
old affiliations, a series of benefits. We may even 
love our friends better as, without regret, we look 
back over the gulf which now divides us. 

A change in mental outlook is essential to the 
requirement of the habit of youth. We all rec¬ 
ognize the benefits of a change of environment, 
an interruption of the routine. We may find an 
entire change of scene and climate marvelously 
renovating, if it induces a corresponding spiritual 
advance. The benefits of a change of scene are 
well known, and they are generally even over¬ 
rated. Vance Thompson, in his book, “Live and 
Be Young,” advances the idea that the most suc¬ 
cessful exponents of his theory are devotees of 
continual change of scene. “They swing through 
the seasons from the ballroom to the mountains, 
from the hunting field to the sea. There is a time 
when they are in Paris or New York, there is as 
inevitable a time when they are in Nice or at 
Palm Beach, or San Diego or Algiers.” Life 
lived at such a pace may or may not be spiritu- 


146 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

ally renovating. We believe the career of the 
chronic amusement seeker is subject to collapse 
like a pricked bubble. 

Elizabeth Barrett, who lived the life of a 
recluse before her marriage to Robert Browning, 
said her adventures were all on the spiritual 
plane. Many who live lives of seclusion know 
more of the essential spiritual expansion than is 
possible to the subject of continual environmental 
change. 

Emerson believed that man should be “first 
domesticated” before leaving home for foreign 
parts. He reminds us that “they who made Eng¬ 
land, Italy or Greece venerable in the imagina¬ 
tion, did so not by rambling around creation as a 
moth around a lamp but by sticking fast where 
they were, like an axis of the earth.” With a 
fixed spiritual center the body and mind may 
play to advantage. 

Alchemists teach that while the “natural” con¬ 
dition of the spirit is volative, the manifestation 
of matter is comparatively fixed; the secret is to 
reverse this order, to fix (concentrate) the vola¬ 
tile spirit and to maintain in matter a continual 
state of flux. This “coagulation” of spirit facili- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


147 


tates the volatility of matter, and this volatility of 
matter, combined with the fixity of spirit, is the 
great desideratum, the solver of all problems, the 
secret of immortality. From time immemorial 
the alchemist has taught the feasibility of contin¬ 
uous life for the individual. The Hermetic doc¬ 
trine by its very name indicates the volatility of 
the life force which was its chief concern. The 
flow of life was to be unhampered, mercurial, like 
the free flowing quicksilver, the u argent vif” of 
the old French alchemists. 

The Elixir of Life and the Philosopher’s Stone 
were terms indicating desirable physical and 
spiritual conditions to be attained by the philoso¬ 
pher. The transmutation of gross metal into gold 
symbolizes the transmutation of the gross mate¬ 
rial form by the guiding spirit, a process which 
we all practice to a limited extent. When our 
methods, hitherto haphazard and halting, have 
become accurate, scientific and continuous, our 
progress, instead of breaking down in middle life, 
may be carried on to perfection. 

Most of us are driven on, willy-nilly, to more 
or less favorable conditions in the thirties or for¬ 
ties. Finding ourselves possibly fit, we are too in- 


148 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

dined to cry “Eureka!” believing we have scaled 
the heights of well-being when we have only 
laved our feet in the mountain stream near the 
base. Civilization in the same way reaches a cer¬ 
tain height, evinces a puerile joy in its achieve¬ 
ments and then falls back like the helpless and 
inanimate sea wave which moves not of its own 
volition, but is impelled hither and thither by the 
sporting winds or the remote influence of the 
moon. It is said that there have been nine at¬ 
tempts at a civilization like our own, and every 
attempt thus far has failed. 

Bergson says, “Life in general is mobility it¬ 
self, particular manifestations of life accept this 
mobility reluctantly and constantly lag behind. 
What was to become a thoroughfare has become 
a terminus.” 

The regenerate individual maintains an equi¬ 
librium; his spirit is fixed like the axis of the 
earth or a spinning top. He feels and compre¬ 
hends the continual flux, but instead of clutching 
it like the unregenerate he deliberately favors its 
flow. The effect is like the loosening of bonds. 
The unregenerate in his ignorance and fear 
plucks at matter, drawing the forces ever closer 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 149 

“from the circumference toward the center,” as 
we have seen. By his greediness the materialist 
defeats his own end, hindering the free motion 
with his meddling interference. 

Thus to the carnally minded, the very desire 
for life tends to deprive him of it. It is as diffi¬ 
cult to hold life with the tentacles of desire as it 
would be to hold the love of a woman with chains. 

The reader seated comfortably should be free 
from tension other than the tension necessary for 
holding his book. Few are actually free to that 
extent. Even lying in bed the nerve ridden indi¬ 
vidual fails to relax completely. Yet the ability 
thus to free the body from tension may be ac¬ 
quired by practice. 

Webster’s dictionary, quoting Faraday, defines 
tension as “a peculiar abnormal, constrained con¬ 
dition of the particles of bodies arising from the 
action of antagonistic forces, in which they en¬ 
deavor to return to their natural state; a certain 
degree or amount of forced variation in the par¬ 
ticles of bodies from their normal state.” 

It is readily understood that the antagonistic 
forces are none other than the friendly forces 
gone wrong. A simple effort relieves the tension. 


150 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

If complete relaxation is not immediately at¬ 
tained, one at first may moderate the condition, 
while intelligent, well-directed effort will shortly 
bring complete success. 

In the spiral of progress one may free matter 
from bonds first by thinking of it as heavy. Con¬ 
centrate in turn on the legs, arms, trunk and head. 
One of the limbs, lifted by an attendant, when re¬ 
leased should fall instantly as if inanimate. This 
valuable test of relaxation has been dealt with at 
length by Anna Payson Call in her book, “Power 
Through Repose.” When each part has success¬ 
fully met the test, the body is completely relaxed 
—volatile. In place of the peculiar, abnormal, 
constrained condition of the particles one may 
think of those minute cells as flying freely in 
happy, harmonious droves. They no longer “en¬ 
deavor to return to their natural state,” because, 
finding ample freedom where they are, their state 
is no longer unnatural. Thus the spirit unham¬ 
pered, like the axis of the earth or a spinning top, 
may become an instrument of power. 

No one who has put this practice to the test 
and has carefully considered the results will fail 
to comprehend that while he holds the body taut 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 151 

he wastes power. It is only under exceptional 
conditions that this tension may be momentarily 
useful. 

Sustained tension is not only useless but it is ex¬ 
hausting and otherwise harmful. Yet many even 
go about their prayers with corrugated brows and 
rigid tendons. When they walk abroad they 
either huddle the forces with contracted shoul¬ 
ders and furtive glances, or they assume an air of 
bravado against a fictitious enemy with biceps 
and other muscles ever ready to strike. In bed 
they hold themselves with anxious care as if mo¬ 
mentarily threatened with a fall. The tongue 
cleaves to the roof of the mouth, the jaws clamp, 
the head firmly pinions the pillow, the hands 
clutch the sheet or the thin air, every separate 
joint of the spine supports itself in rigid uneasi¬ 
ness. The mental condition is the antithesis of 
the Mosaic unction, “Underneath are the ever¬ 
lasting arms.” Death, long anticipated, finds 
them inevitably. Tension is death’s advance 
agent, a protest of the particles of the body seek¬ 
ing to regain their natural state of ease and free¬ 
dom. Wrinkling, the inevitable result of tension, 
is death’s handwriting. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


152 

Tension is the antithesis of beauty. Nietzsche 
has this to say of the effect of tension: 

“With his breast raised and like those 
who draw in their breath—thus 
he stood there, the august one; 

“Like a tiger standeth he there, about to 
jump, but I care not for those 
strained souls. 

“To stand with your muscles relaxed 
and your will unharnessed, that 
is the hardest of all for you, 
ye august! 

“If he would become weary of his au¬ 
gustness, this august one, only 
then would his beauty begin.” 

Beauty in humanity is fleeting and exceptional 
chiefly because tension is so common. 

Probably no other beauty is so nearly free from 
the blight of this constraint as those forms of 
Greek art which have come down to us. The 
Venus de Milo portrays free-flowing ease, sim¬ 
plicity and composure which consort with intel¬ 
ligence and dignity, and which are as far re¬ 
moved from the reckless abandonment on the 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 153 

one hand as from our modern strenuosity on the 
other. 

If we consider the unbeautiful faces and forms 
about us we note in repression and constraint a 
departure from the normal and true. 

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty, that is all 
Ye know on earth and all ye need to know.” 

Everywhere we see tension, the backward pull, 
the lips hard and thin, the brow corrugated, the 
hands clutched, the whole attitude either stiffly 
depressed or harshly defiant. 

Beauty on the other hand is secure and at ease, 
the outward movements like the happy cell in¬ 
habitants within are free-flowing—volatile. The 
mouth is mobile, the lips sufficiently full, the 
brow is smooth, the eyebrows generally high, 
sometimes arched over the wide, full eyes. 






To dance is to take part in the cos¬ 
mic control of the world. 

Havelock Ellis 


I could believe only in a God who 
would know how to dance. And 
when I saw my devil he was earnest, 
thorough, deep, solemn. 

Friedrich Nietzsche 








Chapter XI 



ANCING is the earliest art of the 
world. A baby dances before it 
learns to walk. Most babies will 
adapt their dancing motions to the 
rhythm of music long before they 
have been induced to adapt that 
form of locomotion which usually is the adult’s 
only method of conveying himself from place to 
place by his own motive power. Doubtless the 
inclination to substitute walking for dancing 
was coincident with the fall of man. Man, un¬ 
regenerate, conducts himself with toil and care; 
solemn, like Nietzsche’s devil. 

If we can imagine the early years of those far- 
famed twins Romulus and Remus, who, suckled 
by a wolf, were in their early years wholly with¬ 
out adult companionship and example, we may 
believe that they habitually danced, leaped, 
jigged and galloped, and did not habitually con¬ 
duct themselves with adult decorum as long as 
they were spared adult interference. Their danc- 
157 







15 8 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

ing was probably accompanied by hand-clapping, 
the beating of sticks and stones, also with their 
own voices in the rudiments of song. 

Music, of necessity, follows the art of dancing 
in the evolution of the human race. The music 
of primitive man was very rudimentary indeed, 
as, first of all, supplementary to the dance its 
principal element was rhythm. Dancing, on the 
other hand, may be said to have been born full- 
grown, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter. 
The dances of the present day, which are adapted 
from the dances of primitive man, artistically are 
better than the dances of a few generations ago. 
They are less frivolous, more significant, than the 
waltz and the polka; and at the same time they 
are more varied, more specifically adapted to the 
modern spirit. 

This generation produces dancers of creative 
genius. No other art is received with more ac¬ 
claim, yet all but the elect have yet to learn that 
what may be called vicarious dancing is an anom¬ 
aly—a sorry thing, if we fancy it suffices us. 

A willingness to sit about and be amused or 
edified by appointed agents is a crying evil of 
modern times. The professional dancer or actor 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


159 


must sometimes look out upon the dim assembly 
of faces before him with pity or something akin 
to disdain. Each gapes for its stipulated allot¬ 
ment of diversion, as the fledging bird gapes for 
the worm suspended from the maternal beak. 

G. K. Chesterton, in “The New Renaissance,” 
finds this the “one main modern defect.” He 
says, “To amuse oneself is a mark of gaiety, vital¬ 
ity, and love of life. To be amused is a mark of 
melancholy surrender and a potentiality of sui¬ 
cide. The former means that a man’s thoughts 
are attractive, artistic, and satisfying; the latter 
means that his own thoughts are ugly, unfruitful, 
and stale.” 

To be content to see others dance is like engag¬ 
ing a deputy to make love for us; it is like requir¬ 
ing the priest or parson to say all our prayers. 
Indolence! The individual who has never made 
love, never prayed, and never danced, is a 
monster. 

If a child in its third year is compelled to walk 
an adult undeviating mile, it will suffer, first, 
from discomfort and distress, then from rage and 
exhaustion; yet the same child will play its danc¬ 
ing games for an hour without a sign of weariness. 


160 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

A fact less generally known is that the semi¬ 
invalid, who would be quite incapable of walking 
a mile without getting into a state of pitiful ma¬ 
laise can take part in rhythmic dancing under 
happy, care-free conditions and feel refreshed by 
it. If we could enact a law prohibiting the walk 
at certain hours of the day, and making the dance 
at these times the only means of getting about, 
there would result some inconvenience and con¬ 
fusion ; but the health of the community would 
undoubtedly improve. We cannot as yet enact 
such laws for the public, but many of us can regu¬ 
late our own movements to a degree. With mu¬ 
sical instruments of modern invention we may 
have melody in our own bed chambers. If we 
require it, a little instruction from a teacher of 
rhythmic dancing will recall to us a few natural 
movements—graceful evolutions. In chamber, 
dancing may be found an antidote for many ills. 
Dancing is better qualified to help us maintain or 
regain youthful exuberance than any other sys¬ 
tem of exercise. Every part of the body may be 
brought into play and the stiffness which is one 
of the chief characteristics of old age may be 


overcome. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 161 

Modern therapy lays stress upon the function 
of the spine, which has a modifying or control¬ 
ling influence upon all other parts of the body. 
Without exercise the cartilage is inclined to 
harden and the efficiency of the whole organism 
is hampered. If the spine can be kept pliable 
other parts will tend to correspond and thus one 
may obviate the infirmities of old age. 

All the vital organs in the trunk may be stirred 
to better service by judicious dancing. The ori¬ 
ental Dance du Ventre is peculiarly good for 
torpid liver and other prevalent disorders. Quite 
simply the abdominal muscles may be moved to 
beat time with or without music. The benefit 
will be marked. 

Dancing from very early times was a religious 
act. Primitive man “danced before the Lord,” 
as many do today, and that not only among sav¬ 
age races. Mohammedans still have their danc¬ 
ing and whirling dervishes. The dancer of 
necessity breathes deeply, vigorously sucks a life 
from without, generates it from within. Thus 
tempered, he is suitably equipped to commune 
with his Maker. That he is also ripe for wicked¬ 
ness at such a time is in conformity with the law; 
he chooses freely between good and evil. 


162 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

Dancing as a religious rite having fallen into 
disuse among most civilized nations, it has been 
given over to merrymakers. These people in¬ 
clude the simple and innocent, the child-like, also 
the reckless and foolhardy, even the perverted. 
Many who most need the solace and stimulus of 
this literally inspiring practice are deprived of 
it by a misunderstanding. Thousands languish, 
are peevish, depressed, anaemic, who would re¬ 
vive, kindled to new life by the exercise of 
dancing. 

Such is the misapprehension about the use of 
this ancient art that it is commonly employed to 
produce only secondary ends. Dancing has, in¬ 
deed, a social, a procreative value hardly to be 
over-estimated in the evolution of the numan 
race; but its primal function is the regeneration 
of the individual. It is curious that this aspect 
is generally overlooked. In other arts the social 
value is understood to be secondary. Though a 
musician may strive to please others, he loves his 
art first for its effect upon his own spiritual life. 
The painter is still more isolated; his friends or 
the public may care for the finished product, but, 
once having learned the essentials, he himself 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 163 

paints chiefly by himself and to please himself. 
The joy of the poet is in his creative thought; 
from the moment of conception, through the pe¬ 
riod of parturition to the day the masterpiece is¬ 
sues forth, and after, the poem is of the poet. No 
one perfectly comprehends the poem except the 
poet. The reader, the bystander, may be roused 
to such a pitch of enthusiasm that he fancies he, 
himself, breathes the starry atmosphere of the 
creative artist. He is benefited, but not yet saved. 
He cannot actually participate in the poetry of 
motion by merely observing it. 

I saw a group of dancers appear before a king 
and a brilliant assembly, and all were held spell¬ 
bound by the spectacle of movement. No word, 
no song, no didactic mouthing of a plot; yet here 
was drama, poetry, eloquence, nuggets of beauty 
gleaned from all the arts and put forth in such 
guise that even the most thickset and fatuous were 
roused from the customary torpid inertia of the 
human herd. This vast assembly was moved as 
one man. 

No other art can make this universal appeal. 
Too often the vehicle of expression hampers the 
thought; words conceal, pigments blur it. The 


164 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

facility of the dancer teams with the elemental 
and at the same time with our conception of 
Heaven. In like manner must angels express 
themselves. Words presuppose a halting intelli¬ 
gence. They are like crutches which we throw 
away when we regain our primal vigor. Maeter¬ 
linck says: “It is idle to think that by means of 
words any communication can pass from one man 
to another .... from the moment we have 
something to say to each other we are compelled 
to hold our peace.” 

We love our friends not for words, nor even 
for what we call good deeds, but for that which 
communicates itself without words. Peering 
through the veil that covers the subtile spirit we 
love, we observe the bearing, and catch revelatory 
movement. As in the dance, we measure the 
pause and analyze the posture, we estimate the 
deftness of the quick turn and anticipate the cres¬ 
cendo. Thus we know our friends. We believe 
one who has not and cannot acquire fluent, grace¬ 
ful movement has but a feeble soul, unawakened 
to truth and beauty. 

Many, through diffidence, or through a mis¬ 
taken sense of values, have neglected the art. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 165 

Well directed training may reveal an unsuspected 
capacity for grace and aestheticism. We may do 
better than “assume a virtue though we have it 
not.” We may rouse a dormant virtue. 

There is an easy analogy between the practice 
of philosophy and the art of dancing. The thinker 
who deals only with the commonplace is like the 
man who walks only. He has few problems of 
adjustment. Philosophy is a more dangerous 
enterprise. The dancer’s methods are like the 
methods of the thinker whose risks are no less 
palpable, yet whose suppleness and equipoise 
may be no less sure. He, too, dips and sways, but 
does not fall. Antiphonally he risks slipping into 
the abyss and again asserts himself with unctuous 
ease; he courts disaster, but maintains poise. His 
movements may conjoin the rapidity of the fall¬ 
ing star with the deterring lubricity of oil. “He 
seeks truths of a peculiar shyness and ticklishness 
which one can get hold of suddenly and in no 
other way.” 

Of the philosopher it has been said: “The 
dance is his ideal and also his art, in the end like¬ 
wise his sole piety, his divine service.” A cer¬ 
tain nobility of bearing is a notable feature of 


166 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

good dancing. This is an outward and visible 
sign of a grace which is inward and spiritual. We 
may need the sign to point the way for a vague 
and languid faculty. Action stirs and reacts. 
The virility of the act may arouse a slumbering 
empire. From the crest of the emotional wave 
we may cast off the powers of darkness and learn 
cunning tricks, which open the way to millennial 
freedom. 


What is life? Life is the cease 
less rejection from itself of some 
thing wishing to die. 

Friedrich Nietzsche 




Chapter XII 



NE of the most notable character¬ 
istics of old age is that it is inimi¬ 
cal to love. We may have a some¬ 
what formed affection for elderly 
persons whom we may revere for 
their past achievements. There 
is, perhaps, an attachment due to association, re¬ 
sponsibility, or commiseration; yet old age is 
inevitably abhorrent to healthy youth, which is 
revolted at the dismaying prospect of itself suc¬ 
cumbing to this obnoxious condition. Few youths 
have failed to feel, and many have expressed, a 
haunting aversion to the thought of submitting 
to such an ordeal of spoil and ravage. 

“May death overtake me haply before the 
menopause/’ says Mary MacLane in her youth¬ 
ful autobiography. Touching on a detail of the 
loathed apparition which confronted her, “I 
would rather that almost any physical disaster 
should befall me than that I achieve an abdomen. 

169 



I yo The Rehabilitation of Eve 

When an abdomen comes in at the door life’s ro¬ 
mances fly fast out of the windows/’ 

I once saw a young girl fairly wring her hands 
over the shortness of time. She was a much-feted 
debutante and while she participated in the daily 
round of gaiety with zest and enthusiasm, she la¬ 
mented her inability to devote herself also to cer¬ 
tain forms of art and scholarship to which her 
tastes and talents inclined her. I reminded her 
that, judging from the lives of her progenitors, 
she might reasonably expect to live at least half 
a century more and that she might later find 
leisure and opportunity to cultivate all her predi¬ 
lections. Her effort to picture herself as enjoy¬ 
ing art, literature, and life in the fifties and sixties 
met with indifferent success. Youth foresees old 
age as a period of rapid descent and pitiful de¬ 
cline, and shudders at one or another repellent 
feature as represented by those of advanced age 
about it. 

This youthful abhorrence or shrinking of the 
flesh should be held in regard by the older genera¬ 
tion. No child should be compelled to sleep with 
its grandmother. The nervous shock induced by 
any such close contact may have a lastingly dele¬ 
terious effect. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 171 

It is well to remind present day youth that it 
is braver to attack the dreaded foe than tamely to 
succumb; also that it is wise to inform oneself in 
advance about the ways and means of a seemingly 
formidable enemy. What is his ammunition and 
what are his methods of attack? Is there not some 
flaw, some weakness in his armament; is he, after 
all, invulnerable? 

Scientists tell us that the source of all life is 
protoplasm. Every form of animal life begins 
with a speck of protoplasm which expands and 
appropriates to itself what it needs until, in the 
course of evolution, we have in human-kind a vi¬ 
brant, youthful creature so liberally endowed, so 
fair of form, so mysteriously aligned with vast 
occult forces, that poets and prophets have de¬ 
clared that man was made in the image and like¬ 
ness of God. All this arose from the initial push 
and the continued action of the protoplasm in 
which the red particles of blood are suspended 
and to which the color is due. The process by 
which this minute speck develops until it becomes 
adult man is called “differentiation” by C. S. 
Minot in his book, “Age, Growth, and Death.” 
He says, “In order that the perfection of the adult 


172 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


structure should be attained it is necessary that 
the mere undifferentiated cells, each with a small 
body of protoplasm, should acquire first an in¬ 
creased amount of protoplasm, and that then 
from the increased protoplasm should be taken 
the material to result in differentiation, in special¬ 
ization .” The lowest forms of animal life are 
undifferentiated. Differentiation increases in the 
higher forms and is greatest in the most highly 
developed species in man.” 

Protoplasm then having increased until we 
have the highly differentiated adult man we 
might expect in the long period of man’s so-called 
“decline” a decrease in this fundamental element. 
What actually takes place is, as we have seen, the 
opposite of what we would have been led to ex¬ 
pect. Prof. Minot says of this phenomenon: 
“We touch the fundamental mysteries of exis¬ 
tence, we are hovering upon the outskirts of our 
human conceptions. . . . Perhaps the time may 
come when the limit to which I can now bring 
you will be moved farther back, and some of the 
things which are at the present time utterly mys¬ 
terious and incomprehensible to us will be com¬ 
prehended and explicable to you.” 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 173 

We see here that Prof. Minot finds the contin¬ 
ued increase of protoplasm actually harmful. 
In other words, we perish from too much, not too 
little force. If we can in any way lessen the in¬ 
rush, if we can so adjust our receptivity, and can 
make use of just enough power, not too much and 
not too little, then our problem is solved. 

One of the chief causes of harmful dread 
through the early years is the coming of the cli¬ 
macteric, which occurs in both sexes in the for¬ 
ties. This period is of bad repute through a most 
preposterous misinterpretation of beneficent phe¬ 
nomena. The climacteric marks a salutary dimi¬ 
nution or cessation of certain morbid and unmis¬ 
takably pathological characteristics. It will soon 
be understood that it is youth that is a disease; 
maturity somewhat mitigates this malady. The 
climacteric is the application of prophylactic, the 
attainment of an advanced period of convales¬ 
cence, and before fifty we are usually able to dis¬ 
pense with a large proportion of the most trying 
symptoms. 

Nor are physical ailments the only source of 
trouble to the youth. We have numerous authori¬ 
ties, and there are numberless examples of the 


174 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

fact that the youthful outlook upon life is essen¬ 
tially pessimistic. One authority believes pessi¬ 
mism is confined to the early years. M. Mosbuis, 
one of Goethe’s biographers, says: “One may re¬ 
main a pessimist in theory, but actually to be one 
it is necessary to be young. As years increase one 
clings more firmly to life .... we cannot yet 
explain clearly the psychology of the pessimism 
of the young, but at least we can lay down the 
proposition that it is a disease of youth.” 

We know nature’s great law of compensation. 
Every disease has its antidote. We have observed 
that in the case of acute disease and in some 
chronic diseases the patient may look unusually 
well, having at his command a superabundance 
of vitality called forth by his needs. So the dis¬ 
ease of youth brings with it certain counteractions, 
youth’s indemnification, as it were, for suffering. 
This counteraction may be, indeed, of such mar¬ 
velous efficacy that we are deceived and fancy his 
virility, his particular form of excess is a condi¬ 
tion of normal well-being. The philosopher says, 
“As regards sickness, could we not be almost 
tempted to ask whether we could in general dis¬ 
pense with it? It is great pain only which is the 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 175 

ultimate emancipator of the Spirit.” It is the 
pain of youth that emancipates the spirit for the 
experiences of maturity. It is the dilemma of 
youth that initiates and instigates much of the 
good which comes to fruition in later years. In¬ 
stinctively we love youth and are tender and gen¬ 
tle with it, knowing its frailty and having great 
hopes for its future. 

Shaw says, “Youth which is forgiven every¬ 
thing forgives itself nothing; age which forgives 
itself everything is forgiven nothing.” It is this 
unforgiveness of self which is part of youth’s pes¬ 
simism. Youth’s ideals are high and its experi¬ 
ence little. It fancies pettiness and imperfection 
are intolerable. It cries with the poet, “Tis bet¬ 
ter not to live at all than not be noble.” It learns 
leniency with sadness, believing it has insufficient 
time to remedy the evil. 

Metchnikoff says, “Young people who are in¬ 
clined to pessimism ought to be informed that 
their condition of mind is only temporary, and 
that according to the laws of human nature it will 
later on be replaced by optimism .... The in¬ 
stinct of life is little developed in youth. Just as 
the young woman gets more pain than pleasure 


176 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

from the early part of her married life; just as 
the new-born baby cries, so the impressions from 
life, especially when they are keenly felt, bring 
more pain than pleasure during a long period 
.... The conception that there is an evolution 
of the instinct of life in the course of the develop¬ 
ment of a human being is the true foundation of 
optimistic philosophy. It is so important that it 
should be examined with the minutest care. Our 
senses are capable of great cultivation. Artists 
develop the sense of color far beyond the point 
attained by ordinary man, and distinguish shades 
that others do not notice. Hearing, taste and 
smell can also be educated. Wine tasters have an 
appreciation of wine much more acute than other 
men.” 

One of the most noted pessimists of modern 
times was Arthur Schopenhauer. In his old age 
his friends found in him a very marked optimism. 
At seventy he expressed a desire to live to be one 
hundred years old. His fear of disease and death 
was such that he left Berlin in the cholera epi¬ 
demic in 1831 and went to live in Frankfort, a 
town unvisited by the scourge. 

Perhaps the most notable instance we have of 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 177 

the curative effects of time is in the old age of 
Goethe, who said when he was eighty-three years 
old, “I am delighted to find that even at my great 
age ideas come to me the pursuit and develop¬ 
ment of which would require a second life time.” 
It was said of him at the end that he had no weari¬ 
ness of life, and in his last illness an aversion to 
death such as is rarely found in a youthful in¬ 
valid. He confidently expected to get well and 
thought the coming summer would restore his 
strength. In his early years he was an extreme 
pessimist and cherished the idea of suicide, keep¬ 
ing a poisoned dagger at his bedside ready to 
plunge into his bosom. In his twenty-fourth year 
he wrote in his note-book, “I am not made for this 
world,” and to a friend he wrote: “I know what 
it has cost me to resist the waves of death.” Truly 
youth is a disease! 

The English naturalist, W. H. Hudson, who 
died recently, was another example of this un¬ 
readiness in old age to surrender the life he loved. 
In March, 1920, when past eighty years of age, 
he wrote to a friend, “If I could count on another 
fifty years, or say a hundred, I should be happy.” 
A commentator finds it singular that this man 


178 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

who deemed himself one with the nature he wor¬ 
shipped should have had a “horror of death,” yet 
it is said that “the thought of leaving all the fair¬ 
ness of the earth” filled him with crushing sad¬ 
ness. 

Twelve years ago the most popular book in 
Europe was a work of fiction written by a Dane, 
“The Dangerous Age.” It tells the story of a 
woman in her forties who had been married in 
her youth to a man who was, and continued to 
be, a paragon of connubial virtue. She lived, 
comfortably and happily enough, until she 
reached the dangerous age. At that period this 
woman is seized with unrest. She declares she 
is not happy; she leaves and later divorces her 
exemplary spouse. While always technically vir¬ 
tuous, she involves herself in a series of disasters, 
and when finally she desires to return to her for¬ 
mer husband she learns he is engaged to be 
married to a young girl. 

It has been said that his book presents a mas¬ 
terly delineation of the psychology of the period 
of change. It is frankly pessimistic in tone. We 
are sorry for Elsie Lindtner, and would have 
been glad of an opportunity to advise her, yet in 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 179 

the course of the tale the author makes many 
significant admissions. 

A desire for solitude after twenty-two years of 
married life is conceivably reasonable. Having 
this desire, Elsie retires to an island of great nat¬ 
ural beauty. She has a house built here and the 
house has a glass roof to make it possible for her 
to look at the stars while lying in bed. She has 
with her a cook, a gardener, and Jeanne, her per¬ 
sonal maid. The latter is a lovely creature with 
flaming red hair and amber eyes, and her beauty 
is a source of keen delight to Elsie. For a while 
we find her enjoying not only her opportunity for 
self-communion but also many details of her 
environment. She loves the woods and the flow¬ 
ery meadows. She sits on the shore and ardently 
enjoys feeling the smoothness of the pebbles as she 
lets them slip through ther fingers. In time she 
becomes restless again; she tires of the privilege 
of looking at the stars through a glass roof; she 
tires of the woods and flowers and pebbles of sen¬ 
suous smoothness, and eventually she leaves her 
island for newer scenes. Her restlessness, her dis¬ 
content, as well as the avidity of her esthetic en¬ 
joyments, are all well-known characteristics of 


180 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

the period of life. The discontent is an inevitable 
result of misinterpretation of the whole adven¬ 
ture, a dismaying outlook upon a future which 
she has been taught to believe is inevitably a 
period of loss and decline. Conscious of the in¬ 
flux of new capacities, new resources, new oppor¬ 
tunities, such a prospect is peculiarly bitter, pecu¬ 
liarly mortifying. Yet we know she has been 
relieved of a burden, a detriment. She has lost 
nothing which she could reasonably desire to re¬ 
tain. She has gained what all desire—enhanced 
life with prospects of further gain—a salvage of 
wealth from nature’s inexhaustible store. 

Recognition of the fact that youth is a condi¬ 
tion of disease is not to belittle the value of youth. 
In this still imperfect world a pathological condi¬ 
tion may serve some useful purpose. In one of 
Robert Louis Stevenson’s letters he declared that 
an interval of good health had been actually det¬ 
rimental to his artistic work. Carlyle, De Quin- 
cey, Coleridge, Byron, Keats, Mrs. Browning, 
Nietzsche and many others have found ill health 
a real stimulus to literary production. The youth 
malady has been undoubtedly vastly instrumental 
to production of various kinds. Nevertheless, we 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 181 

should not fail to recognize that youth is an afflic¬ 
tion, an illness; that to have passed the youthful 
period is a happy chance. 

E. S. Martin says, “Being fifty years old is to 
have made a fairly complete recovery from the 
ailment of youth, and that is no small achieve¬ 
ment. ... A large proportion of struggling 
people succumb to youth and its mischances and 
hardships. . . . The rapids of the river of 

life, the rockiest places, the swiftest descents are 
apt to be up stream.” 

Having left youth behind, if we have brought 
with us youth’s hopes and dreams, we find our¬ 
selves better adapted to practical accomplishment 
than ever before. Great achievement is exceed¬ 
ingly rare in early years. Even in art the mas¬ 
terpiece is seldom produced before thirty-five. 
Rarely is a great executive in industrial or politi¬ 
cal affairs chosen until after forty, usually long 
after. The decade following forty is more fruit¬ 
ful than any which has preceded it. Few achieve 
fame until after the half century, while only a 
minority of the actual leaders in church, state, the 
professions and business are less than fifty years 
old. 


182 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

It is true that these men have laid the founda¬ 
tions for great achievement in youth. Probably 
no great work would have come forth without the 
irritability, the goad, the affront, the provocation 
suffered in early years. The youth hampered by 
his disability must usually bide his time. 
Achievement commensurate with his dream may 
come with recovery from his distemper. 


T HE will to do anything can and 
does at a certain pitch of its necessity 
create and organize new tissue to do 
it with. Bernard Shaw 




Chapter XIII 


influence of a new poetry and 
4 ? romance are spreading rapidly. 

The new supersedes the old, yet it 
1 / embraces it and eliminates only 
9 the sediment, the superfluous. 
This shows itself in the finest sort 
of married life which we see all about us. After 
the first troublous years marriage tends to relieve 
itself of its early puerilities in favor of a rising 
tide of capabilities and powers. 

Unfortunately, there is yet much misunder¬ 
standing. This is shown in the prevalence of 
divorce. A lower order fails to comprehend the 
new function. In the loss of the old it fancies it¬ 
self bereaved. The married pair, knowing them¬ 
selves to be far from incompetent, feel that they 
are defrauded by the cooling off of the pristine 
ardour and cast blame upon each other, or upon 
themselves, for this failure to retain what could 
not have failed to become detrimental sooner or 
later. 



185 






186 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

Fortunately, there is a growing number of mar¬ 
ried people who welcome the changed order, 
who, suspecting new potentialities, grope for 
them hopefully and use them with some small de¬ 
gree of success. Meanwhile, they retain for each 
other regard, affection, and in some instances a 
very precious devotion, a revival of the old 
ardours in a new form—the alchemist’s trans¬ 
mutation of gross metal into gold. 

Swedenborg had much to say about the spirit¬ 
ual adventages of marriage. While he believed 
the highest type of soul stood alone unmated, he 
found a very large majority in his time who 
needed the give and take of family life. 

Just as the new poetry will continue to concern 
itself with the highest type of love and marriage, 
the new romance will not cease to deal with all 
the delightful potentialities of human contact. 

The “best seller” of the moment was published 
as recently as January, 1923. “Black Oxen” 
sprang into instant popularity, vastly outdis¬ 
tancing its nearest competitors. The book is 
“furiously discussed”—so we are told—in Lon¬ 
don, Paris and New York. Its clever author, 
Gertrude Atherton, has been producing novels 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 187 

with more or less success for over thirty years, 
yet the unprecedented acclaim given her new pro¬ 
duction must have astonished both herself and 
her friends. 

Her heroine, Mary Zattiany, is fifty-eight 
years old; the widow of an Austrian nobleman. 
She is visiting her girlhood home in New York. 
She has had a long and notable career as a beauty 
and a social light, and later on as an organizer of 
war relief work on the continent of Europe. 
Peace found her saddened and careworn, aging 
physically and suffering from mental lassitude. 
She is induced to go to a hospital and submit to a 
treatment for rejuvenation. This treatment, we 
are informed, is “identical with that for steriliza¬ 
tion” and is now being taken by “many of the in¬ 
tellectual women of Europe.” The result for 
Mary Zattiany has been satisfactory beyond her 
hopes. She is young and beautiful again; she has 
lost her “distaste for new ideas, for reorienta¬ 
tion” ; she discovers in herself renewed agility in 
mind and body. 

The plausible thing happens; she has a flock of 
youthful admirers, and after a period of ardent 
courtship she is inclined to accept the proposal of 


188 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

a young dramatic critic twenty-four years her 
junior. She engages herself to marry him and 
for a few weeks they are happy. The situation is 
necessarily new in fiction, since the new treat¬ 
ments for rejuvenation were not used until after 
the beginning of the war. We are told that men 
and women are now swarming to Vienna and 
other capitals on both sides of the Atlantic to get 
the cure from competent hands. It is too soon to 
know how long the effect will last. Its most com¬ 
petent exponents do not claim for it an efficacy of 
more than ten years. It is at best an exceedingly 
artificial means to effect an end, which, though 
desirable in itself, would seem to call for a 
method rather more esoteric and exalte. Yet an 
artifice is not necessarily to be despised. In its 
skyward flight a bird may take refuge for a time 
upon the tower roof while regaling itself for its 
long composed and unsupported passage onward. 
However, let us return to the lovely Zattiany, 
who is described as looking anywhere from 
twenty-eight in her opera dress and diamonds to 
fourteen in her camp clothes and shade hat. She 
begins to have misgivings about her projected 
marriage. Certain aspects of the situation are 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 189 

brought to her notice rather sharply; the ac¬ 
quired acumen of fifty-eight years comes to the 
surface and saved her from the debacle. Her 
young and charming lover is made to see the light. 
She marries instead an old friend, a contempor¬ 
ary, a man who plays an important part in inter¬ 
national affairs. This man swears he does not love 
her, and he also promises to reiteration that he 
will never love her at any future time under any 
consideration whatever. She sees more romance 
in the prospect of service and power-self develop¬ 
ment than in any of the florid puerilities of the old 
regime. 

These are her parting words to the young 
dramatic critic, who, be it said, was altogether 
blameless in the affair—a quite exemplary lover: 

“I could contemplate going back to certain 
death at the hands of an assassin or in another 
revolution; to stand on the edge of the abyss, the 
last human being alive in Europe, and look down 
upon her expiring throes before I went over the 
brink myself. But I have not the courage to 
marry you.” 

After a period of phenomenal change, it may 
be said that the primal need for man today is not 


190 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


more power, but a sense of direction. A century 
ago matter was but an indifferent servant of man¬ 
kind, its greatness of bulk looming in the imagina¬ 
tion with sinister intent. Man used matter tenta¬ 
tively—in small sections. A mountain was an 
irrefutable fact*, he could neither tunnel under 
it nor fly over it. Electricity was an enemy 
mightily vindictive; the pestilence was a visita¬ 
tion of God in a vengeful mood. We have 
changed all that, and the change is marking its 
effect on the consciousness of man. 

This effect is not coincident with the cause, but 
more gradual. As we count time, it is very slow. 
The effect of vast material change on the con¬ 
sciousness of man is yet to be recorded, because it 
is yet in the process of evolution. The hardiest 
optimist will admit, at the moment, that great 
material gains have not brought us unmixed bene¬ 
fits, yet it is a notable truth that myriads of men of 
negligible accomplishments have dreams of 
power today that would have been foreign to the 
imagination of their forefathers. 

The solidarity of the human race is easily dem¬ 
onstrated. Because man has accomplished great 
things, therefore each unit is involved not only in 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 191 

the result but in the innate capacity to accomplish. 
Each man is slow to admit a personal inferiority. 
If this plight is overwhelmingly apparent, he be¬ 
lieves the difference is of degree rather than kind; 
that, given a little more knowledge, a little wider 
range of opportunity, a little more time to acquire 
the ability to manipulate the ever present vital 
surge, he, too, could accomplish great things. 
Our oneness with the poor and needy is often 
brought to our attention. It is generally recog¬ 
nized that while grinding poverty, wretchedness, 
degeneracy and corruption exist the whole race is 
weighted down. Each one, whether he will or 
not, is involved in the suffering of others; there¬ 
fore, more money is expended annually for the 
care of the sick and needy than for any form of 
amusement or innocuous self-indulgence. The 
corresponding truth, though more significant and 
far reaching, has not been so generally reckoned 
with. We also partake of the ease of the opulent, 
the cunning of the strategist, the prowess of the 
brave, the ingenuity of the inventor, the fervour 
of the orator, the dream of the poet, the ecstasy of 
the saint, the large vision of the creator of new 
values. 


192 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


The material advance in the past century was 
created in the minds of comparatively few indi¬ 
viduals. These have thrust the results of their 
parturition and bringing forth upon the human 
race. Most inventions cannot be said to have met 
a popular demand. Instead they have created a 
popular demand. Material advance has taken 
the people unawares, finding them not ungrate¬ 
ful, yet unprepared to adjust themselves rapidly 
to new conditions. The mind of the populace 
moves slowly. A new generation shortly appears, 
a generation which accepts these new conditions 
perhaps with avidity, perhaps with carelessness. 
Either way the new generation lacks the spiritual 
experience of the older generation, which slowly, 
perhaps painfully, adjusted itself to innovations, 
and which after such adjustments could partici¬ 
pate in the changed conditions with appreciation 
and a subtlety of understanding essential to a de¬ 
gree of spiritual growth. As it is a new genera¬ 
tion, while accepting improved conditions, fails 
to execute a step in advance of the preceding gen¬ 
eration. On the contrary each new generation is 
inevitably, ruthlessly, a stepping back in order to 
facilitate an advance, which is rarely accom- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 193 

plished. More often it is a stepping back merely 
to mark time, and history frequently points to 
generations which have failed to mark time, even 
to generations which have achieved a retrograde 
movement of such proportions that the race has 
been plunged into an abysmal cul de sac, there to 
wallow for centuries. 

There were undoubtedly civilizations in pre¬ 
historic times, civilizations which flourished and 
decayed, leaving little trace outside of the tend¬ 
ency in the human consciousness to dream of a 
former high estate, a lost Paradise, a golden age, 
a very early period when men were as gods upon 
the earth. 

The evolving spirit is widely receptive and car¬ 
ries with it a confused memory. The receding 
image may be blurred by later imprints; it suffers 
the lack of continuity, but it is not wholly effaced. 
The consciousness which has come to resume life 
in the world, the individual consciousness of a 
child is not like blank paper—it is stamped with 
memories of success and failure, triumph and 
humiliation, hope and despair. The triumph of 
erect physical stature and all that is involved in 
holding the head aloof from the ground; the 


194 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


humiliating tendency to fall again to the earth 
and die like the beasts. The story of the human 
race is a story of continuous rise and fall. Always 
the image of the beast comes to blur the image of 
God, and so always within the consciousness is a 
warring tendency. The brief Age of Pericles 
brought an aftermath of decline. The rise and 
fall of the Roman Empire speaks eloquently of 
the unworthiness or inability of new and untried 
generations to follow in the footsteps of the old. 

A generation which wins its privileges can best 
enjoy them. Though all men have inherent po¬ 
tential power, a single generation which has not 
fought and won for itself cannot have the same 
fitness to exercise power possessed by the genera¬ 
tions that brought it forth. Though each genera¬ 
tion finds itself confronted with an accumulation 
of victories won by its progenitors, it lacks time 
to appropriate those victories. Hence it is a com¬ 
mon saying that man is no happier today than he 
was before he had so many privileges to enjoy. 

We know the popular legend of the beggar 
transferred from his garret to the palace of king 
and there sumptuously fed and clothed and 
treated with deference and honor. The imme- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


195 


diate effect upon his consciousness was not happy. 
The beggar is ill at ease in the king’s palace; he is 
still a beggar at heart. If he is informed that he 
is indeed a king, that his period of indignity was 
due to a certain inadvertence, perhaps to perver¬ 
sity and reticence on his part, he will pass through 
a period of doubt. Gradually his inner conscious¬ 
ness will ascertain the truth of his kingship, and 
the man eventually may comport himself in a 
manner befitting his office. Too, probably, he 
will not have sufficient time to grasp the essen¬ 
tials. Prison mould still clings to him, the old 
fetters still bind. Death finds him not yet ready 
to free himself from the old bonds and the scepter 
is passed to his son. This scion nimbly grasps the 
symbol of power, dexterously mounts the throne 
of judgment, comports himself with careless ease 
and polished grace, and yet is counted a fool. 
The kingship is dead. The father lacked suffi¬ 
cient time to assume his empire; the son lacked 
the culture of the garret, the spiritual purge of a 
rise from obscurity and the time to accumulate 
illuminating experiences of his own. Both father 
and son lacked the initiative of the creator of the 
kingship who long since had passed into the 


196 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

shadow. Each lacked time to establish his 
ideal. 

The great need for all of us is an extension of 
time, a longer term of office, a more protracted 
period of usefulness. From the earliest push, the 
merest twinkling of animate life in the primeval 
slime of an evolving planet, up through the varied 
periods of vegetable and brute life, past unre¬ 
corded cycles of human rise and fall, to the pres¬ 
ent day, that motive impulse which we call in¬ 
stinct, intuition, intelligence has been evolved for 
the end of extending and sustaining life. It has 
been used for diverse and secondary ends; the 
primeval purpose, though continually active, has 
been hindered and curtailed. Its effect is far 
short of what it might and should be. Life could 
be sustained with better effect and could be con¬ 
tinued indefinitely. In the light of modern sci¬ 
ence it would be difficult to find one who would 
have the temerity to deny this. 

The victory over death is a necessary, natural 
consequence of enlightened intelligence and spir¬ 
itual growth. Having passed through the kinder¬ 
garten of spiritual understanding, man may take 
what he sees fit. When death is not only abhor- 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


197 


rent, but intolerable, death will cease to be. 
When the decrepitude and decay of old age is 
more than merely distasteful to us, decrepitude 
and decay will pass. 

We are dainty and careful about our outer gar¬ 
ments. Few of us would be willing to put on 
clothing in any stage of shabbiness. When a dam¬ 
aged and broken-down wearer of garments is also 
unbearable to us, one will be as rare as the other. 
Palpably aging and dilapidated throat muscles, 
for example, will be as unusual as a frayed and 
crumpled collar beneath. In such degree as we 
are more intimate with our throats than with our 
collars, the decrepitude of the one should be more 
reprehensible to us than that of the other. 



Nature always proceeds by jumps. 
She may spend twenty thousand years 
making up her mind to jump, but 
when she makes it up at last the 
jump is big enough to take us into 
a new age. 


Bernard Shaw. 



Chapter XIV 


HE public attention recently has 
been aroused by the offer of Ed¬ 
ward W. Bok of a prize of $100,- 
ooo for the American who can 
suggest a practical plan under 
which the United States may co¬ 
operate in bringing about the peace of the world. 
Mr. Bok has expressed a belief that people scat¬ 
tered here and there have given the matter some 
attention and may have valuable ideas to set forth. 
The interest in his project was immediate and 
grows prodigiously; it acts like a University Ex¬ 
tension Course in international thinking. Already 
hundreds of thousands seize the papers every day 
to see what new idea the contestants have put 
forth, while literally millions who have been 
thinking loosely and aimlessly along these lines 
will soon be making a wholesome effort to gather 
in their vagrant thoughts and to consider larger 
relationship and social aims. 







202 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


Since every politician of any eminence has 
volubly expressed an opinion to little purpose, it 
is quite possible that the solution of the difficulty 
may be hidden among hoi polloi, the non-vote¬ 
seeking majority. The old adage has it that the 
voice of the people is the voice of God. The ob¬ 
ject of the prize offer obviously is not to hold out 
a plan which already has been weighed in the 
balance and found wanting. The dismal failure 
of the old efforts is so conspicuous that only a 
radical change of front is likely to discover an 
avenue of hope. 

Within forty-eight hours of the announcement 
of the offer a multitude of suggestions were sub¬ 
mitted, all of which as reported were modifica¬ 
tions of old and tried plans which, when put to 
the test, had generally failed. 

If the award succeeds in focusing the attention 
upon a solution as far as possible removed from 
the repudiated Lloyd Georgian form of Peace 
Conference, the relief would be gratifying in the 
extreme. A changed prospect, a new outlet for 
the emotions, a vital belief in new conditions, 
these things would be received with voracious 
acclaim. 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 203 

A public once aroused to the feasibility of the 
perpetuation of individual life would rise up 
against war with a far closer approach to single¬ 
ness of purpose than it has ever yet shown in favor 
of the military ideal. A government which com¬ 
prehended the importance of the conservation of 
human life, which has not in prospect an almost 
unlimited source of supply in generations rising 
and yet to rise—such a government would not 
only oppose war, but would exercise the utmost 
care not to permit an agressive policy in relation 
to other governments. 

An appointed committee of fifty women, repre¬ 
senting the civilized world, meeting in conclave, 
each with the avowed object of returning to her 
own people to proclaim the gospel of perpetual 
life in its relation to peace and harmony—such a 
conclave with such a mission is capable of insti¬ 
gating that prodigious jump set forth in Shavian 
terms at the head of the chapter. Each member 
would find in her own language scientific and 
philosophical writings bearing on the subject up¬ 
holding the truth. She would draw the public 
attention to these writings. She would also glean 
from them certain affirmations and aphorisms 


204 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


which, combined with certain selected transla¬ 
tions and a declaration of her own convictions, 
could be issued in pamphlet form and widely dis¬ 
tributed. The radio and cinema could be requisi¬ 
tioned, broadcasting the message which, once 
called to the attention, would be rapidly under¬ 
stood and appropriated. 

The time is ripe; the people press forward to 
salvation. In their overwhelming eagerness they 
are credulous to the point of folly. They grasp at 
straws, yet they would more readily seize a help¬ 
ing hand. The thirsty man with the parched 
throat and the swollen tongue flounders miserably 
and threatens to drown in his pool of drinking 
water. A word of advice and a helping hand 
from one with his feet firmly fixed on the shore, 
and the man is saved. If the leader flounders also, 
the affair is hopeless. 

As one example among many showing the atti¬ 
tude of the public, one may cite the attention 
roused by the millennialists of the International 
Bible Readers’ Association. In the Hippodrome 
in New York the president of the association, 
Joseph F. Rutherford, has more than once deliv¬ 
ered a lecture which he called “Millions Now 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 205 

Living Shall Never Die.” The newspapers re¬ 
ported that the place of the meeting was packed, 
while a multitude in the street surged about the 
doors eager to gain admittance. An extra force of 
police was employed to keep the crowd back. All 
seats, as well as all available standing room, were 
ocupied until seven thousand persons, the ma¬ 
jority of them men, filled the auditorium. Thou¬ 
sands were turned away. The lecture had been 
very little advertised. Owing to certain revolu¬ 
tionary tenets in Judge Rutherford’s teaching, 
few newspapers were willing to make the an¬ 
nouncement even in their advertising columns; 
the friends of the movement had spread the news 
of the meeting principally by word of mouth. In 
this way the subject to be discussed got about and 
the people flocked madly to hear what was said 
on a matter that appealed to them with an over¬ 
ruling interest. 

This speaker’s bearing is one of assurance 
and dignity. He is not gifted with oratorical or 
other powers. When in London he spoke in the 
Royal Albert Hall, the greatest assembly hall in 
the world. It is said that it was filled to its utmost 
capacity and that more than fifteen thousand per- 


206 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


sons were turned away. He has delivered the 
lecture in person many hundreds of times in dif¬ 
ferent parts of the world, and has published it in 
a book, more than three million copies of which 
were sold in a year’s time. His predecessor as 
president of the International Bible Readers’ As¬ 
sociation was Pastor Charles T. Russell, who died 
in 1916. More than five million copies of Pastor 
Russell’s principal book have been sold. It was 
published in 1886, and dealt with the prophecies 
of the Bible, particularly those of Leviticus and 
Daniel. His studies led him to believe that the 
“time of the end” would begin in 1914. Many 
other students in different parts of the world, who 
knew nothing of Pastor Russell, had also pre¬ 
dicted the beginning of the end, or a significant 
crisis becoming acute in 1914, but the prophecies 
of the International Bible Students’ Association 
were probably more widespread than any others 
of their time. 

This “time of the end” was to culminate in the 
greatest period of trouble the world ever had 
known, and the year 1925 was given special sig¬ 
nificance. The following is quoted from the 
printed version of Judge Rutherford’s address: 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 20 7 

“The Jewish people were a typical people. By 
and through the experience of that people an im¬ 
portant date is fixed. The Jubilee system of the 
Jews, ordained by Jehovah, foreshadowed by the 
Millennial reign of Christ. Israel entered Pales¬ 
tine in 1575 B. C., was commanded to keep every 
fiftieth year thereafter as a Jubilee, and was 
commanded to keep these jubilees for seventy 
periods. 70 X 50 is 3,500. The period must end 
in 1925. The type ending, the ante-type must 
begin, and therefore 1925 is definitely fixed in the 
Scriptures. Every thinking person can see that a 
great climax is at hand. The Scriptures clearly 
indicate that the climax is the fall of Satan’s 
empire and the full establishment of the Mes¬ 
sianic kingdom. This climax being reached 
in 1925, and that marking the beginning of the 
fulfilment of the long promised blessings of 
life to the people, millions now living on earth 
will be living then, and those who obey the 
righteous laws of the new arrangement will live 
forever. Therefore, it can be confidently said 
at this time that millions now living will never 
die.” 

Thus in 1925 Christ’s Kingdom would be estab- 


2o8 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

lished. In predicting such a radical change in 
the almost immediate future, Judge Rutherford 
puts a severe strain upon the credulity of his hear¬ 
ers and readers. Only a minority follow the 
whole of his teaching, which is fantastic in detail 
and not altogether evocative of harmony and 
righteousness. Many listen with some impatience 
to much that fails to interest them, in order to get 
information upon a subject in which they feel an 
intimate concern. Having already a vague nebu¬ 
losity of belief in the possibility of the perpetua¬ 
tion of life, they vainly hope for enlightenment, 
for clarification. Many in their own persons have 
acquired certain vital elements of the promised 
salvation which the speaker as yet sees only with 
a prophetic eye. 

Teachers presenting some of the same argu¬ 
ments as Judge Rutherford have sprung up in 
many of the sects and have been immediately ac¬ 
claimed, only to be disciplined and suppressed 
by their superiors in office. The doctrine has 
been accompanied by extreme forms of pessi¬ 
mism about the present and the immediate future. 
Revolutionary tenets have been put forth and 
even incitements to riot. Bible prophecies to 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 209 

support this are widely used as from Matthew 
24: 21, 22: 

“For then shall be great tribulation such 
as was not since the beginning of the world to 
this time, no, nor ever shall be. 

“And except those days should be short¬ 
ened, there should no flesh be saved. But for 
the elect’s sake those days shall be short¬ 
ened.” 

The events which already have taken place and 
are transpiring at this moment are held to be ful¬ 
filling these dire forebodings. But it is believed 
that the worst is yet to come. It is said “most of 
Europe will be destroyed” by wars, earthquakes, 
or tidal waves. Threats of war, reports of vol¬ 
canic eruptions, the calamities in Chili, earth¬ 
quakes in Persia and Sicily, and like occurrences 
in other parts have been seized upon gleefully by 
these prophets of evil. The political situation in 
Europe, bad as it is, has been exaggerated; wars 
have been confidently predicted, which have 
been, in fact, averted. It is sufficiently evident 
that Europe lives over a “boiling volcano,” meta¬ 
phorically speaking. The worst that these quasi- 


210 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

prophets predict may indeed occur. When a 
patient is very ill it may be said that the worst is 
likely to happen. He may and frequently does 
die. On the other hand, he sometimes disappoints 
his physicians and friends, who fail to understand 
the force of the beneficent influences which con¬ 
tinually are at work. The New York Times re¬ 
cently enumerated (March, 1923) the wars and 
other calamities which had been considered 
almost inevitable this past winter, but which had 
failed to materialize. 

It is useless to belittle the situation, which is, in 
fact, more threatening than at any time in the his¬ 
tory of man. It is useful, on the other hand, to 
look for a way of escape. The great mass of the 
people is moved by the “will to live.” This funda¬ 
mental move is continually active. There is a 
way of salvation. A desperate need engenders 
powerful counteraction, and “necessity is the 
mother of invention.” Remedies are at hand, but 
are useless if neglected and fallible if misapplied. 

A new and absorbing interest spreading 
through the mass of the people and adding a new 
value to human life could not fail to have a 
favorable effect upon the political situation, 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 21 1 

which would shortly adjust itself along rational 
lines. 

We may be told that the aim of self-develop¬ 
ment and culture is narrow and egotistical. This 
is far from being a fair statement of the truth. A 
pebble dropped in midocean stirs the elements 
and carries its thrill to the antipodes. So the 
humblest soul may say with the greatest Leader 
of them all: 

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, 
will draw all men unto me.” 

Simple materialism may arise above the masses 
by trampling the weaker members under their 
feet. A higher idealism cannot fail to elevate the 
lower order much or little, as its own altitude is 
great or small. Men are always more or less 
susceptible to the influence of greatness, and at 
this period the general susceptibility is increased. 
Men are sensitive to changing conditions and are 
fumblingly putting forth tentacles to discover 
new prophets, new leaders. If they are continu¬ 
ally disappointed they will fall back into Ni¬ 
hilism. 


212 The Rehabilitation of Eve 

It is related in the Scriptures that in the time of 
Abraham the great city of Sodom, with Gomor¬ 
rah and outlying districts, were destroyed as a 
punishment for grievous sin. With great elo¬ 
quence and fervour Abraham prayed God that 
the disaster might be averted. He said: 

“Peradventure there be fifty righteous 
within the city, wilt thou also destroy and not 
spare the place for the fifty righteous that are 
therein? 

“That be far from thee to do after this 
manner, to slay the righteous with the 
wicked; and that the righteous should be as 
the wicked, that be far from thee. Shall not 
the Judge of all the Earth do right?” 

When Abraham was told that the Lord would 
spare the city if fifty righteous were found in it, 
he grew somewhat doubtful that this considerable 
number could be assembled. Reconsidering sev¬ 
eral times, he became ever increasingly pessimis¬ 
tic. He said, finally: 

“Peradventure ten shall be found there?” 

He was assured that the place would be spared 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 213 

for ten’s sake. Yet the ten were not found and the 
destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah became a 
symbol and a household word to this day. 

Most disasters become known as very obvious 
facts. Remedial forces, though more powerful, 
generally are less conspicuous and therefore may 
be neglected. Though nearly every person living 
who has not faced almost overwhelming calamity 
has been made to suffer minor troubles or incon¬ 
veniences by the war and its aftermath, there are 
multitudes who continue to live and enjoy in¬ 
creasingly the blessings of life, hope and happi¬ 
ness. Many already have become conscious of 
potential powers hitherto undreamed of, because 
these have become obscure or in hiding under the 
cloak of materialism or inertia. 

Life is a boon precious beyond all else. To 
gainsay the value of life is to give the lie to our 
very existence, since the ability to get out of it is 
not beyond the capacity of a child of seven. We 
cling to life because we love it. To deny this is 
monstrous folly. If it is difficult to go out in time 
of stress, it is because life loves us, too, and is ever 
coddling us either with joy or with hopes of joy 
to come. 


214 


The Rehabilitation of Eve 


In the Bhagavad-Gita we read what life in its 
fullest attainment, its apotheosis, says to us: 

“Nay! but once more 

Take My last word, My utmost meaning havel 
Precious thou art to Me; right well-beloved! 
Listen! I tell thee for thy comfort this: 

Give Me thy heart! adore Me! serve Me! cling 
In faith and love and reverence to Me! 

So shalt thou come to Me! I promise true, 

For thou art sweet to Me!” 





























































































/ 





















/ 











SEC 2 2 1924 




» * • 

« t * • * < 

• * i :*.<r 




Vs% tilA 






' 




•• ?S% • i -‘ m,' - 

*T>W'V* 

» k 
-•• %■* 




,,- y 


i r,i 54 ,.™ 3 »f 

* / : A. t wi» r‘ VJftJ - 






'3*1,i'i 


* : 


- f> 


-,-». 

L’-.t *4 


CA 




' 

•T; ;• 5 ? ,-.’ <•• i V : -*> - 

. 

i ' -S' ' * ", . * 1 >Vp*H - -" ■■ “ •»'• 


S 


> 


pl v<‘ 



.. ; 


’ . ■ 




\ 




■ fe 


j>4 

* ># 


, *; 

'■ # « j§3g i«e v 

' .- 'V. ' P -- 

- f . y. - ~ « 


.V 




: 

. .* • 

•’- - 

A 


. ■v 


y,, , 



TO*' 




- 

* 8 

. 


i- 


“Wn. 


B«f4y#p 


•' 

-J,' ' v ' '$£zt * *3 ’ - • ’’ru 

T .,:■ *..» . * *t _ „•■ Tt 

. vm : >■ 


-P'' 1 




' 

« ’; 




; -* v .4.^^-, •-'•'.’ViJ.i 

T * l * \ £ 4 - ' ‘ * 

t' . r _ * 




.< ». 


a . * 


.* {. ■»« / 


.• • «v •■'■ * ift rr. r.-:'* 

. ' ' ■;>; . - ; T • 1=: . 

. - - ; r-i:b £-•■■.%? ■ ■ r - 

. 

• ; r. • 'A -X$4-r . : •• •* ■?* •• v 

X i ‘ i v ''’1-$'.' : X 

>. v • . ■ - < ■ . “-i/- y> • : ??' V ■ '4 ."■* 

-* -I * v "f. *V-- y { S ' J ,' I . * ., 

• . • : j •■g 3'v\;- ■- 


: V? 


■ ' i’*' ■ 

' i. 





- -■ - J ■?'■ i •.. i ', 

1 

■ •• •- ' . 

1 

. T» , swrT 1/ 

mV\4 <rV' fHSFv v ' 

f ?rj L'llv ^ 

. ,-••♦ ’ *4 v. , v • 

■ 




V , 1 . - - f 




i 

. 

r ■ : : , : -*■ •--? - *'•&&• '.II-- J>- 


ff.V 


> * » • • j. 

■** p 4 J 


- 

■ 

• X-.^ -' fV‘ /• - ’ 'J»' : 1 5^'-'^ • * 4 r «fte' • f 

•" ‘Jf , ' > . 4-^ * i 

r 1 .'• . 2 < **•/ 




-* ^ H - « ’> *v » ' i 

i ^ • i 

•■'■■; ■• -. 4 : » >•'•* .' ' 

; ■ •;.. ¥" ‘ 1 >^ -• >- *>: • •» 


*■ : >.^v 


T- - V^ 


■■" 1 4‘- ■- -* •. ij r?i 

■v f#»}:>k-.4 1 


Ui*- 


; . »'? "? ‘ ■ “ * - ■• 

■ */.V ..: .,* - 4i5 f •* • - ..--X v . • 

►' * -I. 2 ... V >- ->. ? r '•* 

- ->AfA. , f - * ■ 


. - v ’V .-■• jjjr t.-* -jb'* ^ } . r 'X*'? "i \ . \kj' £ 

rh - v t >.; 

* < • • ;. v s « ;W • r ? - * i 


<T ‘ 


r 



r 







